


Feel Good Hit of the Summer

by anomalagous



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 21:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7286143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalagous/pseuds/anomalagous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Roscoe breaks down on the way to a supernatural summit in Las Vegas, Scott and Stiles are stranded in the middle of the California High Desert with practically no way to contact the outside world. Without internet and existing on the hospitality of a pack of desert wolves, they're forced to figure out how to occupy themselves for days on end in the desert sun while the Jeep is fixed. The trip ends up far more enlightening than Scott could have ever guessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel Good Hit of the Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [hobroseyberry](http://hobroseyberry.tumblr.com/) for the art assets and [quicklikelight and ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickLikeLight/pseuds/QuickLikeLight)[snoopypez](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snoopypez/pseuds/snoopypez) for their tireless Beta-efforts on this little monster.

 

The Mojave was just one of those places, Scott supposed, where you could stand on a vantage point a lot higher than the front tire of your best friend’s ancient Jeep CJ-5 and the horizon would still stretch on forever with a landscape so unremarkable it looked like it had been cloned over and over with the stamp tool in Photoshop. The world had been split into two colors, dusty golden-brown bending its back up against the impossibly blue sky, and here was Roscoe in the middle of it, blue in the wrong place, refusing to move another inch.

Stubborn. Just like its life-partner-owner-driver.

Scott looked up at Stiles, perched haphazardly on the roof of the Jeep. He’d always thought that roof was put on wrong, about to collapse in on their heads at any moment, but so far it was standing up as Stiles wobbled onto his feet, secured by one of Scott’s hands on his ankles. He stretched himself up against the sky, waving his cell phone helplessly through the air while he muttered at it to _just work for like five minutes, you stupid thing, five minutes so we don’t die out here in the middle of California’s scorching butthole, come_ _ **on**_ _!_

They’d been on their way to Vegas, and if Scott were being honest (in a way he’d never be straight to Stiles’ face, fearing a two-hour lecture of insulted, wounded wrath) he’d have admitted he had never expected the Jeep to get them that far. He’d spent three weeks trying to scrape together the funds to fly them both out on the cheap to the convention he’d been invited to, before Stiles’ constant assurances that Roscoe was healthy and Roscoe was _strong_ and Roscoe was straight out of the shop and didn’t have _any_ duct tape on its engine had finally broken his resolve. It was really only a matter of time on almost all things before a determined Stiles Stilinski would break his resolve.

And now here they were in the middle of the desert with a broken-down car almost older than the two of them combined.

Stiles’ leg wiggled under Scott’s hand, and he looked up just to see his exasperated friend moving to sit on the roof of the Jeep and start a controlled slide towards the ground. He brandished his phone at Scott as he went, shaking it back and forth in a way that flashed more sun-flare off of the glass than any useful information. “Well, it isn’t worst possible scenario. It’s close. We’re super, _super_ close, but not actually _worst_. That’s the good news.”

Keeping his hand close until Stiles was back on the ground, Scott frowned down at the phone. It was moving way too much for him to make any sense out of it. “Your good news is that there could have been _worse_ news?”

Stiles made a noncommittal gesture with one hand, head shaking through an expression that Scott had learned long ago meant _I have no better answer for this_. His mouth was dropped open, like Stiles thought he could shed some of his extra body heat by breathing through it, and Scott found his eyes drawn to the way Stiles’ tongue flicked across his bottom teeth before he spoke. “Look, the point is, I managed to get the app to work. We have a truck coming to tow us to the nearest town. The _bad news_ is, well--Mojave. We’re gonna be here for a while, and it’s the freaking _desert_.”

Scott looked up the seemingly endless stretch of I-15. He looked down it. “...well, like you said. It could be worse. At least we have water in the car.”

“I’ll remind you of your fierce optimism when we’re out of water and having to consider drinking our own pee.” Stiles threw himself backwards to huddle in the shadow-side of the Jeep with enough force to rock the vehicle on its wheels. He tipped his whole head up and back, throat lengthening as he looked up at the sky with an expression that made Scott think he was attempting to shame the sun for personally offending him.

“We’re not gonna have to drink our own pee.” Scott chided quietly, opening the hatch to dig out a pair of water bottles. It wasn’t very environmentally friendly to have three whole cases of bottled water shoved in behind the back seat, but Scott had deemed it to be _necessary_ , and he couldn’t regret that decision now. He came around to sit next to Stiles, offering one of the bottles up. “I mean, there’s two of us. I’ll drink your pee and you can drink mine. Problem _solved_.”

Stiles dropped his head back down from where he’d tipped it up to the heavens, just to level the same blank, unimpressed expression at Scott that he _always_ used when faced with Scott’s best jokes. There were some gems in this world that Stiles seemed fundamentally incapable of appreciating.

Sighing, Scott tried again with the assurances he knew Stiles was actually expecting from him. “The tow truck will get here way before we have to drink our own pee. Besides, once the sun goes down it’ll get super cold and if we’re still out here we’ll have to switch to cuddling in the back seat for warmth.”

Stiles winced theatrically, wrapping the fingers of one hand around the cap of the bottle to twist it off. “After you’ve spent all afternoon baking and marinating in your own sweat? _Great_. Looking forward to it. That’s definitely gonna be the highlight of _my_ day.”

The elbow Scott tucked into Stiles’ ribs was carefully timed _not_ to result in Stiles spilling water all over his front, although given how much sputtering Stiles did anyway, Scott wondered why he’d even bothered. “Hey, at least _you_ don’t have a heightened sense of smell. You think I’m going to want to smell you in an enclosed space for hours after you’ve worn that flannel _in the desert_ all day?”

Huffing, Stiles propped his water bottle up against the tire and looked down at his sleeves. He didn’t seem to have any intention of taking the shirt off, but he did start to roll the cuffs up to his elbows. “If I take this off, I will transform into the Amazing Lobster Boy, and then I’ll make an _incredible_ impression on your friends in Las Vegas.”

Scott pursed his lips in thought, letting his eyes scan over Stiles as he sat beside him. He was already sweating fairly heavily. Stiles had a habit of putting his hands in his hair when he was stressed or agitated, which meant he’d already started to work the gel out of it. It was losing altitude fast. Stiles kept panting helplessly through his mouth and his cheeks had already flushed, and Scott thought to himself that Stiles would certainly make _some_ kind of impression on _some_ kind of people, but probably not the kind he meant. Scott didn’t share that particular thought. Instead, he gave his head a shake, dropping his gaze towards the dirt at the side of the road. “You know, there’s this magic stuff they make called _sunscreen_ that--”

“--Oh, _shut up_.” A hand, slightly damp from condensation on the outside of the water bottle, reached out to press against Scott’s shoulder and shove. There wasn’t much malice or venom in either the words or the gesture, but Scott rolled his torso to the side briefly anyway, as if Stiles had really pushed him with force. “I didn’t pack any. I figured we weren’t going to be outside enough for it to matter.”

“You knew we were going to be driving through the desert and you decided _you_ , of all people, didn’t need sunscreen.”

“I said, shut up!”

“It’s just that you’re so _white_ , and--”

“Shut UP! Oh my _God_ , you’re the _worst_!”

“--You’ve got to take precautions, since it isn’t like your skin has natural defenses against this kind of climate.” Scott couldn’t help himself. It was always fun to prod at Stiles in this way, to poke at the places where he’d slipped on a detail he would have normally caught, as long as the detail was a simple, easy thing that couldn’t cause anything more harmful than a sunburn. He loved the way it seemed to close what little distance developed between them sometimes, how it deepened the flush on Stiles’ cheeks.

He even liked how it caused Stiles to scoop up a handful of desert dust and start trying to grind it into Scott’s hair, repeating his instruction to _shut up!_ with his laugh barely hidden in his voice.

 

The tow truck came before the sun set, which Scott was happy to consider a blessing, considering the shadows had already started to get long. They’d been napping in the lee of the Jeep when the truck finally rolled up, unable to handle the heat in any way other than hoping to sleep it away, and Scott insisted on digging out another pair of water bottles out of the back before the mechanic hooked the Jeep up by its front axle. They squeezed into the back bench of the truck’s cab, shoulders pressed tight together.

There was nothing really to be said on the ride into the nearest town, other than Stiles’ grateful little mewl of noise when he realized that the tow truck had _air conditioning_. The mechanic was laconic in a way that lacked malice, full of assurances that anything like payment or discussion of what was even wrong with the Jeep could wait until they were all safely settled in at his shop. It wasn’t like they could do anything about it now, anyway.

The truck turned around at the first switchback that could accommodate the wide radius of something towing Roscoe, and they rode back the way they’d come for a bouncy thirty minutes in the slow lane, finally pulling off of the freeway towards a town that Scott had _completely missed_ as something that existed when they passed it on their way east.

Scott had always kind of thought of Beacon Hills as a small town, but Yermo put it to shame. Its biggest claim to fame seemed to be a restaurant named The Burger Den, which proved to be a walk-up only fast food joint that still bore the rusted, tattered logo of a defunct Del Taco on its roof. They passed tiny, dust-covered houses, derelict and abandoned buildings that looked like they belonged in the background of _Fallout_ , and a singular motel which seemed to have fashioned most of its rooms out of mobile homes anchored to the ground with whitewashed cinder blocks.

A liquor store the size of a closet and an unironically-named general store later, they finally rolled to a stop in the dirt yard of what appeared to be the only mechanic in town. The ancient sign on the front of one of the buildings said _El Toro Tires and Repair_ and little else. Further down the road, near the edge of the little compound, was a handwritten sign that promised Alignments and Auto Repair. The ‘i’ in repair had obviously been forgotten and then squished in as an afterthought. It didn’t exactly instill Scott with an enormous sense of confidence.

They spilled out of the relative comfort of the truck’s cab back into unremitting heat of the California desert. The sweat that had chilled on his skin in the coolness of the truck now felt tacky to Scott, like it was attracting all of the dust hanging in the air just to adhere it straight to his bare arms and the back of his neck. They hadn’t even really gone anywhere or done anything but Scott already felt like he could use an hour-long shower.

Stiles fell out of the tow truck with about as much grace as he tended to exit Roscoe with, seemingly catching himself with his feet at the last possible instant. He immediately stripped himself out of his flannel and stood there with it balled up under one arm, using his intense scrutiny of the way the mechanic lowered his Jeep down from the truck to ignore the way Scott quirked an eyebrow. He somehow wasn’t surprised that the heat had defeated Stiles’ fears of becoming lobster-red.

Once Roscoe was back on all four wheels, the mechanic squeezed into the space between the Jeep and the truck to pop the hood and peer down at the inner workings of Stiles’ beloved steed. He just _stared_ , for a long time, his hands on his hips, before grumbling out in that unassuming Californian drawl of his, “Where’d you say you boys came from, again?”

“Beacon Hills.” Scott answered, earnestly, before Stiles had a chance to shoot him any kind of warning look about honesty. “It’s a little north of San Francisco.”

The mechanic--Scott would later learn his name was Rick--took a moment to sweep his gaze thoughtfully over them in turn, Scott and then Stiles. He sucked a breath through his teeth in a sudden _tch_ of noise, and gave his head a slow shake, slamming the hood shut again. “I’m honestly surprised you got this far in this thing.”

Stiles bristled immediately, restrained only by Scott’s hand darting out to touch one forearm. “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? That Jeep’s a _good Jeep_! It’s...it’s a good car, okay?”

Scott knew Stiles had wanted to call it _reliable_ , but given how much the Jeep had been breaking down lately, it had lost that trait even to Stiles’ eyes. Now it was mostly just a car that Stiles couldn’t bear to let go, constantly in shambles.

“Maybe it was a good Jeep in nineteen eighty four,” Rick somehow made the statement sound reasonable, at least to Scott’s ears, rather than as sharply sarcastic as it truly was, “But now, it’s half of the vehicle it should be. It is missing parts that I honestly don’t know how it runs without.”

Stiles looked like he was about to _explode_ , given the amount of puffed-up indignant rage he seemed to be feeling, so Scott stepped subtly between him and Rick, keeping his angry friend at bay with the physical barrier of his hip and side. “Can you fix it enough to run again? We’re on our way to Vegas. We were kind of on a schedule.”

Rick sucked air through his teeth again, looking back at Roscoe’s hood. “I can fix it. I’m not so sure about your schedule, though. There are some critical parts that look like somebody just ripped them right out of the engine bay. I don’t keep parts for a car this old lying around, I’ll have to order them special and it might take a couple of days for them to get here. Maybe as much as a week.”

“A _week?!_ ” Stiles’ voice was pitchy with his upset, spiking in the middle. “Are you _kidding_? What is this, some kind of _highway robbery_?”

Unfazed by Stiles’ protest, Rick looked up at him slowly, canting a shrug through his shoulders. “Your other option is you pay for a tow all the way to Barstow or Baker and hope they can do you better. This Jeep ain’t going anywhere on its own without some major work, either way.”

Scott dropped his weight backwards a little to keep Stiles bullied away from Rick the Mechanic, who really did seem to just want to do his job. “You know, that’s actually fine, sir. If we could maybe pay for the tow and get an estimate, that’d be great? And directions to the nearest place we could stay for the night?”

“The motel is just up the road about a mile,” Rick explained, gesturing with one hand in the direction he meant. From this distance, Scott couldn’t tell which of the sad, slump-shouldered buildings actually belonged to the motel and which didn’t. Either way, he supposed it didn’t matter, he wasn’t looking forward to the walk. “I’ll drive you up there once we’re settled about the tow.”

In the corner of his vision, Scott could see Stiles slump a little, submitting to the inevitable. He hung his head, giving Rick a sullen little glare before sweeping his eyes back up to Scott. “Look. Why don’t you take care of that and I’ll get our bags out of the back of the Jeep?”

It felt a little bit like Stiles was asking to be left alone with a suffering pet on the verge of being put to sleep, but there were some oddities Scott was aware he’d never work out of Stiles’ bones. He bobbed a nod of understanding and turned, then, to follow Rick to the building with the sign hanging off of the side. It was just about the only building in the mechanic’s compound that wasn’t filled to its rickety sides with spare tires that had been in in the elements so long that Scott couldn’t rightly imagine what kind of tire problem would make any of these seem like a viable alternative.

Inside the building wasn’t much better. There was clearly nothing as fancy as air conditioning; instead, the air was stirred by a handful of lazy, off-kilter fans, all wobbling on their bases to different squeaky rhythms. A few free-standing shelves stood in the middle of the room, offering a sparse selection of oils and antifreezes. Scott wondered if the town was small enough that Rick knew to keep in stock only what the residents needed.

Rick led the way through the building to a small counter at the back. There was an ancient-looking computer with a CRT monitor hulking against one side, but Rick didn’t seem inclined to pay it any mind. Instead, he dug up an invoice sheet and started filling it out by hand.

Scott began to feel uneasy. While he and Stiles had put money aside for this trip--more than enough, he’d hoped, if they managed to stay reasonable and economical while in Vegas--almost none of that money was actually in cash. He had to hazard the question, worried about the answer, “Do--do you take credit cards?”

“Yeah,” Rick dragged the word out, stretching Scott’s relief into multiple syllables. “It takes the thing a minute, but we take ‘em.”

“Thank _God_.” Scott breathed, digging his sweat-sticky wallet out of one pocket so that he could free a credit card. He would have been ashamed to try and hand Rick any of the soggy bills in the billfold anyway. “How much is the tow going to come to?”

Dark-stained fingers clasped at the bright edges of the brand-new card, and Rick pulled it up close to his face to read the details on it. That took longer than Scott expected it to, before Rick asked, “Scott McCall, from Beacon Hills?”

Scott’s heart sunk deep into his chest. Surely, this town was too small and too remote for this? _Surely_ they didn’t know his name so far from home, in such an out of the way place?” “...Yeah. That’s me.”

“You were headed into Vegas for the West of the Rockies Summit?”

The heart that had sunk then transmuted to lead and became a weight in Scott’s stomach, hard and poisonous. That Summit wasn’t a _secret_ , exactly, but it was closely guarded knowledge. It wasn’t the kind of thing that someone would know about if they hadn’t received an invitation themselves, and _invitations_ weren’t exactly extended to the general public. “How...how did--?”

Rick offered Scott’s card back and began to rip the half-filled-out invoice off of its pad. One neat motion tore it in half, and then Rick was looking up to meet Scott’s eyes. His gaze had gone glowing gold.

Scott felt his own red eyes rise in response, before he could do anything to sublimate it.

“Stories about True Alphas make it pretty far, Alpha McCall.” Rick said, dropping his eyes after a moment to consider the invoice. “Even out to the corner of the desert. It’s peaceful out here, or as peaceful as things can get for people like us. Lots of room to run without anybody getting into trouble. We don’t have anyone like you out here, with the red eyes and such, so we weren’t rightly invited to the Summit, but we make do.”

His head was spinning, and Scott was pretty sure it wasn’t exclusively from the amount of sun he’d gotten over the course of the afternoon. How could this be happening? How could it be that even broken down in the middle of the Mojave Desert, in a town that didn’t even seem to have as many residents as it had abandoned buildings, he _still_ ran into werewolves who knew his name and whatever confused, unreal legend had stretched out around him with no basis in his reality as   _a teenaged boy_. “...Oh...okay. But...shouldn’t....don’t I owe you for the tow still?”

Shaking his head, Rick started to come around the counter, something softened in his expression. “Son, I’m not looking for trouble, and I know you aren’t either. If it got out, and it would, that my family didn’t extend all the hospitality we could to a True Alpha, there’d be trouble for me and mine. Whatever you boys need while you’re here in Yermo, it’s on the house. I don’t think I can get you to the Summit, but I can at least make sure you get home safe.”

 _That_ didn’t sit well in Scott’s stomach, _either_. It felt much too much like indebting himself to a stranger and a pack of wolves he hadn’t even met, not to mention the discomfort he suddenly felt at being aware that he was effectively trespassing on their territory. He was sure his face reflected his unhappiness as he looked back to Rick, wallet still in his hands.

“Come on,” Was the only response Rick had to the expression that Scott was _certain_ must look as lost as he felt. “Let’s get your things to the motel and set you up. I’ll give you a call when I’ve got an update on that old Jeep. It’s the best I can offer you.”

If there was anything a few years as a werewolf and a few _less_ years as an Alpha had taught Scott, it was that sometimes there really _wasn’t_ any point in fighting upstream. He closed his eyes, feeling his shoulders sag back down with a now-familiar weight, and tucked his card back into his wallet. “...okay.”

 

 

The ride from Rick’s shop to the motel was just short enough to make Scott feel like maybe they should have walked it rather than pull Rick away from his work to drive them. Fortunately, that guilt was short-lived, because all it really took was to turn over his shoulder and witness Stiles struggling with his share of their luggage to realize that attempting to walk any sort of distance with the burden of their gear would have been an insurmountably miserable experience for both of them. Scott made sure to apologize to Rick approximately four hundred times to make up for it, instead.

Rick didn’t seem fazed either by the drive or by Scott’s apologies. Instead, he led them into the front office of the motel and introduced them to his wife, who wasted no time in getting them set up in one of the stand-alone trailers that served as the motel rooms. A quick estimate led Scott to believe that this motel had a grand total of ten rooms, and they probably didn’t worry much about having to put the ‘no’ up in front of their vacancies sign.

The inside of the room seemed to be coated in the same layer of dust and disuse that the rest of the town labored under. There was one worn-out queen-sized bed in the middle of the room, flanked by sagging end tables, a spartan bathroom with a tub and no shower, a couple of barred windows with sad, bedraggled curtains and a ceiling fan with a distinct list in its orbit. Still, with the exception of the inescapable desert patina, the sheets and towels and appliances seemed clean, and the motel had left a coffee pot on the haggard desk in the corner with packets of instant coffee, powdered creamer and styrofoam cups. It would do well enough.

At least, he had thought so. Stiles’ assessment, after he stumbled in through the door and got it closed behind them, was less optimistic. “Ohhh _hhh_ , no, no, no, what is this, is there no air conditioning?”

The answer to the question was patently obvious, but Scott still took a moment to glance around the room before offering, mildly, “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Stiles tossed his backpack to the floor against the foot of the bed, stress in every note of his voice. “It’s like a hundred and fifty degrees out there!”

Scott sighed, as fond as he was exasperated, watching as Stiles fussed through every corner of their room and apparently found the entire thing wanting. “It’s only like a hundred and ten. You’ll survive if you just give up your addiction to flannel overshirts for a little while. Even without air conditioning.”

“There’s only one _bed_. And there’s no _shower_.” Stiles bulled right through to continue whining, pacing back out of the bathroom to fling himself into the middle of the bed. “We were supposed to be comped a room at the _Mirage_. You know what this isn’t? The _Mirage_. This is _not_ the Mirage.”

“This isn’t like it’s going to be the first time we shared a bed.” Scott pointed out, as long-suffering as he’d been for the entire conversation and growing longer.

With a sigh, Stiles turned his head, watching Scott carefully over the top line of one of his arms. Even in the shade of the hotel room, Stiles was still sweating pretty heavily, giving the impression that he was melting down into his component parts on the bed. “Yeah, but the last time we actually did that we were both, individually, at least thirty percent smaller than we are now. _And_ you didn’t radiate heat like you’re Ragnaros.”

“Like I’m _what_?”

“Nevermind.” Stiles pushed on immediately, the angle of his eyebrow betraying how the rest of his face must have been scowling. “The point is, this is going to be the worst.”

Something sour-tasting pushed up into Scott’s throat, like a stone sitting right at the base of it, where it connected to his collarbones. He had an awareness he shouldn’t say anything about it, but years of living in proximity with Stiles had worn off some of his ability to hold his tongue. “No. I can think of a different motel that was way worse.”

They both knew exactly which motel that Scott meant the moment he said it. Stiles recoiled a little as if he’d been physically struck, hunching his shoulders in order to hide more of his face. They sat there in silence, together, remembering unhappiness. Scott wasn’t sure if the scent of gasoline was residual from having been at the mechanic’s, or something his mind was bringing back up like bile.

Eventually, Scott swallowed it back down, the way he always did. He rocked forward on his feet and reached out, trying to clasp one hand on Stiles’ shoulder to pull him up off of the bed. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk and see if that little market has sunscreen.”

There was inertia in the way that Stiles rolled over onto his back, but no real reluctance in him reaching out to take Scott’s hand and use Scott as a counterweight to pull himself up to his feet. It was the way they’d worked together for years, Stiles either rushing forward to tug Scott with him or lagging behind to anchor him when he was too hasty. This was nothing different, even if it did mean going out into the heat of the California desert. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have done this while we were down there by the mechanic’s. Now we have to walk like a whole mile.”

Scott chuckled, bringing his hand back around to pat reassuringly at Stiles’ shoulderblade once his friend was standing. “It’ll be good for you. We’ll buy some aloe too in case you burst into flames at the sheer concept of sunlight.”

Stiles kept a low level of unhappy grumbling going on as they re-emerged into the sunlight, but he followed along, even willing to leave his perpetual flannel behind. Without the obfuscation of the extra cloth, limned in the bright sun, Stiles seemed larger somehow. Scott was struck with how much broader Stiles’ shoulders were than they had been a few years ago, how the line of him had changed to suggest more muscle and power. No one ever seemed to really take note of that, too busy being starstruck by their ridiculous concept of Scott’s being, or blinded by their opinion of vanilla humans in general.

That was ridiculous, too. Scott couldn’t imagine his pack functioning without vanilla humans. Scott couldn’t imagine _himself_ functioning without _this_ vanilla human, even if all the moles flecking Stiles’ skin had always made Scott think of him more as _vanilla bean_.

Sun-dried vanilla bean, at this rate.

With the town as desolate as it was, there was no traffic moving on the road beside them, which made it easy for them to walk abreast, jostling each other with their shoulders and hips. The rush of traffic moving past on the 15 was a distant, pleasant white noise, like a far-off river. Despite their situation, Scott could feel himself start to relax a little, with the warmth of the sun soaking into his shoulders. Maybe it would be nice, to have some time off where the biggest worry they had in life was how they were going to wash their hair in a tub that didn’t seem quite big enough for either of them.

By the time they made it all the way back to Variety and Market that Stiles had very rightly pointed out was just across the street from Rick’s shop, they were both soaked through with sweat. They bumbled in through the shop door to a blast of cool air and the noisy sound of Stiles taking a deep gasp like he’d just narrowly avoided drowning. A weathered woman looked up from the counter near the door and quirked one eyebrow lazily before looking back down at the magazine she’d been thumbing through.

It was a modest store, smaller than the Beacon High cafeteria. The shelves nearest the door boasted an eclectic array of souvenirs branded with the names of Yermo and other nearby towns. There were cheap plastic snowglobes representing an area of the world which never saw snow, which amused Stiles to the point of laughter. He passed through that point to true obnoxiousness when he realized that they had almost universally been on the shelf long enough that all of their water had evaporated. He found the oldest, saddest looking one and put it in their basket, assuring Scott that it was a beautiful metaphor and needed to go home to Beacon Hills with them.

Scott was more interested in the sun-faded flyers for a place called _Calico Ghost Town_. He plucked one off of the rack as they moved further into the store, waving it under Stiles’ nose like he might have waved a boat of curly fries. “Look! There’s an abandoned silver mine nearby!”

With an expression of deep scrutiny, Stiles traded the basket for the flyer, flipping through it as Scott moved through the store, selecting things he considered essentials. He decided on the highest SPF of sunscreen they had, careful to make sure that it wasn’t out of date before he tucked it into the basket next to a jar of peanut butter.

“We are totally _not_ going to this place.” Stiles concluded eventually, tossing the flyer into the basket with the rest of their sundries.

“Aww, why not?” Scott hadn’t really been serious about going, although he wasn’t too proud to admit some curiosity about what was still there and what had been built hundreds of years ago. Still, it wasn’t actually possible for him to let Stiles’ declaration go without even gentle challenge. It was simply the nature of being the Scott to Stiles’ Stiles.

Stiles knew the routine, too, straight down to the dubious, doubtful expression he leveled at Scott as they unloaded their basket to be rung up, eyebrows lifted. “Because. This place is already a total ghost town, and we have no car. I am not walking _miles_ in this heat to go visit somewhere that expressly advertises having _nothing in it_. That is like the literal definition of a waste of time, except it’s a waste of time that might also kill me. No. This is me putting my foot down. Nope.”

There was something understanding about the look the woman running the till gave him, so Scott simply turned to her and smiled, nodding with her unspoken question. “Yes. He _is_ always like this.”

The ensuing avalanche of insulted sputtering only proved Scott’s point. It was nice. Warm and familiar, like the sun outside.

 

 

 

Dinner was nothing more interesting than a couple of cans of Spaghettios which Scott heated up over a little camp stove they’d salvaged from the back of Roscoe, which _Stiles_ was insistent were probably out of date and going to give them both botulism. After that, they split a package of dry chocolate mini-donuts and watched the colors in the room change as the sun set and the light went thin and died.

Stiles seemed to forget how deserts functioned every time he left one to return to the safe embrace of the forested Beacon Hills region, and this trip was proving to be no exception. The moment he had finished with his bedtime routine, he flopped himself down on one half of the bed, grumbling about Scott keeping his oppressive wolfy heat to his own damn self.

Scott could only smirk his way through brushing his teeth. He knew how this was going to play out.

Sure enough, no more than an hour later, all of the radiant, sun-baked warmth had bled out of the stones and the sand, leaving cold stars and a chilly night that cut right through the thin walls of their motel trailer. Outside, Scott could hear desert nightlife coming awake; the cry of some kind of owl and the resultant shriek of a dying rodent. Even considering the massive Preserve in Beacon Hills, Scott felt closer to nature here than he had in a long time, maybe ever. It felt like all it would take would be to stretch his senses out, just a little further, and maybe he'd hear every life or death scruffle and every heartbeat of every creature in the scrub brush from the motel room to Barstow.

Of course, that presumed he’d ever hear anything past Stiles shivering on top of the blankets beside him.

Scott considered letting Stiles live with the consequences of his own bad decisions for a few minutes. That thought didn't last; Stiles never seemed to learn the lesson that anyone wanted him to take away from adversity. There was an equally large chance that Scott would just end up reinforcing some kind of extremely undesirable Stiles behavior, of which there were already far too many. Having failed to cut this off at the pass, the best that Scott could do was to hope to catch up and divert.

It took a little extra effort to get the blankets tugged out from beneath the weight of Stiles’ body, none of which was appreciated by Stiles. Scott could tell that he wasn’t sleeping from the pattern of his breathing, but the thought was still reinforced when he gave a strong tug and Stiles made a sound of protest, the grumpy irritation in his night-cold voice rising with each repetition. Eventually, just about in time with Scott _finally_ finding the far edge of the blankets, Stiles worked himself up to actual words. “What the _fuck_ , dude, I’m trying to sleep!”

“Yeah, and you’re doing a super crappy job of it!” Scott countered, finally able to lift the edge of the blankets up above the line of their bodies with one hand. The chill in the room rolled in like a cold front. He could tell when the warmth he’d cultivated for himself hit Stiles’ back, because the other boy gave a low, quiet gasp. “Uh-huh. Exactly. Get under the blankets and stop being stubborn.”

There was a grumbling sound that Stiles made which made Scott think, for a moment, that he was going to refuse on some kind of obscure principle that only made sense to Stiles. He was glad to see he was wrong, because after the sound had finished, Stiles started shimmying backwards, letting Scott drape the sheet and the comforter around his shoulder. Stiles’ hand came up to pull it down the rest of the way and tuck it under the edge of his body.

Neither of them seemed to see any reason to try and keep up appearances. As soon as the blankets were tucked in tight around them, Stiles was scooting backwards into the warmth that Scott put out, like a cat in search of sunbeams. He elbowed Scott in the ribs at least twice and knocked his knees into Scott’s, but eventually they got everything sorted out. Sure, it ended up with one of Scott’s feet trapped between Stiles’ ankles and his face perilously close to buried in Stiles’ hair, but given everything they’d shared and survived over the years, a little cuddling seemed downright innocuous. Especially when Scott could feel his heat work its way into Stiles’ bones and make Stiles _relax_ , just a little, for the first time in who knows how long.

So Scott just let it happen, let himself provide the warmth his friend so obviously needed, and tried not to think too much about how _right_ it felt when he slung one arm over Stiles’ body, palm flat against his breastbone, and drifted off to sleep on the tides of Stiles’ breathing.

 

 

 

 

By the time he woke up in the morning, Scott was already covered in what felt like it would be only the first of many layers of sweat for the day. The sun was already, had clearly _been_ up, trading out the night’s coldness for the rising temperatures of a Mojave summer again. More surprising was the fact that Stiles was _also_ up.

Despite the fact that neither of them drank coffee, Stiles was standing near the table with the coffee pot on it, cloaked in an acrid scent that meant he had probably spent way too much time figuring out how to brew coffee nobody was going to drink. Scott wondered if it was a principle of the matter thing or habit born of living with the Sheriff. Either way, Stiles was giving the coffee itself no attention, instead focused on the action of fussily rubbing his palms up and down the thighs of his jeans.

There was something weirdly mesmerising about the action. Scott couldn't draw his eyes away from Stiles’ long fingers sweeping against the fabric, clutching at the places the denim bunched. Scott was abruptly aware of how dry his mouth was. He gave a low groan with the effort of reaching for the bottle of water on the end table that caused Stiles to startle in place and look over his shoulder at Scott with a rueful, annoyed expression.

Scott downed about half the bottle of water before trying to give Stiles his best sympathetic expression. “You okay, buddy?”

“I can't do it, Scotty. I can't. I'm never gonna make it.” Stiles’ voice was tense and mournful, the sound of a man facing the gallows.

“You can’t do _what_ , Stiles?” Scott didn’t _think_ Stiles was injured; he didn’t smell like anything other than annoyance and sweat, really, no matter how much Scott dug through the chemosignals. Still, with Stiles it was frequently better to be safe rather than sorry, even if Stiles just as frequently made it impossible to avoid the _sorry_ part regardless of other outcomes.

Luckily, all Stiles did was reach down to bunch up his jeans by their pockets, frustratedly ruffling the fabric around as much as he could. “This! The...the jeans! In the desert! I’m going to boil in gross sweaty denim, dude. I’m going to _die_. I can’t pants today and I’ve got nowhere to no-pants in.”

Scott let out a soft puff of air in relief, pushing himself up to sit at the head of the bed. He considered his uncomfortable friend for a handspan of moments, wondering how Stiles could be simultaneously so perpetually cold and also so intolerant of the heat that wasn’t bothering Scott nearly so much. He couldn’t help but wonder how much of this was Stiles playing up his discomfort because it was something mundane, something _simple_. There were no life or death consequences, which meant Stiles could freely use it as an outlet for all of the complaining he wanted to do about things that neither of them could help, at this point, but that far more deadly ramifications.

On the other hand, Stiles _did_ genuinely seem to be sweating a lot.

Either way, Scott decided he could help. He beckoned Stiles closer with one hand, scrubbing sleep out of his eyes with the other one. “C’mere. I think I can fix it for you.”

Stiles’ eyes rolled, but his body also moved, closing the distance between them so that he could stand next to the bed. “You’re gonna fix the _desert_? Man, I know a lot of power comes with this whole True Alpha gig, but _fixing the desert_? I’m pretty sure this what a desert is supposed to be like, that’s why they call it a _desert_.”

“I’m not gonna fix the _desert_.” Scott muttered, reaching out as soon as Stiles was close enough. He grasped his friend with one hand, using the other one to feel the shape of Stiles’ leg beneath the cloth, taking note of where Stiles’ knee was and where his leg flared out again for the widest part of his thigh. “I’m going to make it more _tolerable_ for you.”

The more that Scott examined his leg, the less Stiles seemed able to stand still. He squirmed and shifted his weight, constantly moving through Scott’s field of view belt-buckle first. It was incredibly distracting. “Stiles. Hold still. Okay?”

“Hold _still_?” Stiles echoed, seeming scandalized that Scott had even asked that question of him. He started to shift his weight again, but seemed to freeze when he looked down to see that Scott had pulled out the claws on his right hand. His voice pitched higher. “...Scott?”

Scott ignored him, and instead bunched the fabric up until it popped off of Stiles leg just above the knee. He continued to ignore Stiles’ even higher-pitched-still protests of _dude_ and _what the hell, Scott!_ and at least one mostly-gentle cuff to the side of his head, and pierced the denim with his claws. Careful not to prick Stiles’ skin with them, Scott proceeded to saw his claws through the cloth of the jeans, widening the rip with their razor edge and his superior strength until he could work it reasonably evenly all the way around Stiles’ leg. By the time the bottom half of the jeans’ leg had fallen to slump shapelessly onto Stiles’ ankle, he’d given up protest and let Scott give the other leg the same treatment at approximately the same place.

It was better that way, easier when Stiles wasn’t struggling.

Eventually, Scott leaned back, satisfied with his work. Stiles whirled around gracelessly and flopped onto the end of the bed so that he could remove the now-useless extra denim from his legs. “You ruined my jeans. Your idea of fixing things was ruining my jeans.”

“Oh, stop complaining,” Scott said fondly, knowing full well that no amount of scolding would actually ever make Stiles stop complaining. He reached out to touch Stiles’ nearest leg at the knee and sweep his hand downwards, indicating the bare skin. “I made shorts for you. Less fabric, better air flow. You’ll be way more comfortable. Besides, these are designer now. One-of-a-kind. The ragged edge thing is super in. You should be grateful, I just jumped your personal style forward at least two years.”

Stiles scoffed, and then scowled, first at Scott’s hand and then down at his own bare legs. “You wouldn’t know personal style if it jumped out of the woods and bit you on the butt like Peter Hale. I’m gonna burn like _crazy_ now. My knees haven’t seen the light of day since that time your Mom took us to that water park when we were like twelve.”

“You mean the one where you somehow got your swimsuit caught on a loose nail on the water slide and ripped it clean off of your body?” Scott scooted around on the bed so that he could lean back, knitting his hands behind his head and letting his own legs dangle off of the end, bent at the knees. He was still only wearing his boxer-briefs, but if Stiles wasn’t going to make it weird, Scott was determined not to make it weird either. He got so few moments in life where Stiles wasn’t making it weird. “Your _everything_ saw the light of day that day, dude. And everybody saw your everything seeing the light of day.”

“Don’t remind me.” Stiles groaned, as if he wasn’t the one who had brought that ill-fated water park trip up to begin with. “Sometimes, late at night, in my dreams, I still hear that old woman screaming like it was _my fault_ the slide was hazardous and had _chosen_ to despoil her virtue or _whatever_ with my prepubescent shame.”

Scott felt his face stretch around a lazy smile. He liked moments like these, the ones that came way too few and far between, where he and Stiles could reminisce about the silly, stupid human times they’d had before the supernatural had come crashing down on them like an avalanche. Sometimes, Scott thought they weren’t ever going to get those moments again, those simple things where no one’s life was ever at risk and that could be recounted later without any trace of gallows humor.

It was way too early in the morning to be so maudlin. Grunting, Scott pushed himself up again, rolling to his feet and trying to shake the residual sleep out of his limbs. He got about two-thirds of the way to standing before he realized that he was still half-hard with morning wood, and suddenly having his hips point any way but _directly at Stiles_ seemed like a huge deal. He didn’t even know _why_ , since like so many other things in life, this wouldn’t be even the second time Stiles had caught him in such a state. He just knew it was incredibly important, important enough that the urgency overrode his normal quick wolf reflexes and had Scott stumbling like a newborn colt towards the bathroom.

“Whoa, you okay, man?” Stiles’ voice came from behind him, just languid enough to not seem _actually_ worried.

He needed to pull himself together. Scott scrubbed one hand over his face and continued towards the bathroom without looking back over Stiles and risking something on his face giving him away. Not that he actually had any idea what he’d be giving away. He was just convinced there’d be _something_ he didn’t want to show Stiles. “What? Oh, yeah, my leg’s just asleep. It’ll go away soon.”

The springs of the bed creaked with Stiles’ weight as he made a sound of assent. “Sure. On your way out could you bring that sunscreen? There’s no way I’m gonna be able to stand being in this room with no cell reception for a whole day and there’s no way you’re gonna be able to stand being in here while I _try_ to do that.”

Scott coughed a laugh as he imagined how quickly Stiles would end up bouncing off of the plaster-white walls, without some kind of input for his constantly moving brain. “Yeah, bud. Totally.”

 

 

He couldn’t say he’d come out of the bathroom clean, exactly, given they had no shower and Scott hadn’t had the patience to take an actual _bath_ , but he was definitely clean _er_ , having at least scraped away the top layer of sweat with a wet washcloth. He’d tried to stay in the bathroom long enough for his state of emergency to calm down a little bit, which meant by the time Scott actually came back out with the sunscreen, Stiles was already vibrating. If Scott let that go on for too long, Stiles would eventually find the frequency needed to shake the walls of the room down.

On the principle that sleeping in the elements would be a thousand times worse than sleeping in their Spartan little motel room, Scott was determined to get them out of the room as quickly as possible. He brandished the sunscreen at Stiles like a threat, until Stiles finally gave in and applied it. He wasn’t subtle about his displeasure with the task, which was fine because it was familiar, and also because it distracted from the hypnotic motion of his fingers as he rubbed them up and down his arms and legs.

This was the second time in a little over an hour that Scott had been so caught up in the way Stiles’ hands moved. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he was starting to wish it would stop, except for all of the parts of him that kind of wanted it to go on forever.

Scott wasn’t used to being so excruciatingly of two minds about things, so it was a bit of a relief when Stiles popped up onto his feet and announced that he was finally ready to brave the sun. Scott stuffed a couple of bottles of water and a box of granola bars into his backpack on their way out the door.

He knew that, realistically speaking, neither of them was going to make the five or so miles to the Calico Ghost Town on foot, let alone make it there, explore, and get back to their motel. Still, Scott tried to orient them more or less in that direction. It was nice to think of having an end goal, something to frame their little expedition with so that it didn’t feel as boundless and endless as the landscape looked. Besides which, Scott had already grown fond of the idea of Calico on paper. There was no way he was letting them go home without visiting it, once Roscoe was fixed, but that was something he could wait until later to address with Stiles. Stiles would probably need some grooming before he’d warm up to the idea.

Now was not that time. Now was Stiles at what might be his most unkempt, a couple of paces behind Scott as they trudged forward through the desert. The sound of Stiles’ elevated heartbeat was sadly familiar, but in this new context it was almost calming, a constant reminder that Stiles was alive and well enough to follow behind him, even on Scott’s less-well-considered adventures.

They could use a few more less-well-considered adventures.

The first hour or so of their mostly-aimless wandering passed in amicable silence, which was also something they didn’t see nearly enough of. Scott appreciated that it was still possible, that sometimes it was enough to just be in each other’s presence without even chatterbox Stilinski feeling the need to fill the silence with aimless noise.

Of course, almost as soon as Scott thought that particular thought, Stiles spoke up, reaching out to tug on the back of Scott’s shirt with one hand. “Hey, man. I’m hungry and I’m hot as balls right now, can we take a breather?”

“Sure.” It only took a minimal amount of searching before Scott found a boulder near the foot of one of the hills that seemed suitable to take a time-out on.

To call the rock sun _warmed_ was a gentle way of putting it; Stiles flopped himself down onto its surface only to spring back up immediately with a dismayed little shout. Scott watched wordlessly as Stiles paced back and forth, rubbing at his butt like the stone had assaulted it. Eventually his insult over sun indexing was overcome by his desire to sit down, because he came back around to gingerly settle down next to Scott. He acclimated to the temperature slowly, but eventually he had both long legs spread out and stretched to their limits, heels dug into the dirt and toes pointed in opposing directions. He leaned back to support his upper body’s weight with his palms against the boulder, and Scott was struck with how _long_ Stiles seemed.

It wasn’t that Stiles was abnormally tall, because he wasn’t, although he did have an inch or so on Scott. He was just _long_ , seemingly made entirely out of limbs, like he’d stepped out of some classical painting where all the proportions were just a little off. It was endearing, in its own way, in the same way a puppy that hadn’t quite figured out how its body worked was endearing.

“Man, everything in this desert is _dead_. It’s a serious _wasteland_. Hah. _The Mojave Wasteland_. I feel like we’ve stepped straight into a set piece from Fallout.” Stiles’ voice split the silence, as it often did. He couldn’t handle quiet for very long.

Scott didn’t agree that the desert was dead. It seemed more alive than anywhere they’d been for weeks, full of little animals scuttling around minding their own little animal businesses. He could hear them, tiny feet and claws on the stones and the sand, but he imagined Stiles wasn’t so lucky, lacking the hearing acuity that Scott had access to as a werewolf.

He didn’t push the issue. Instead, Scott turned his head to the side, watching the side of Stiles’ face fondly. “Fall out?”

“Yeah, like those video games I play,” Stiles sounded almost weary, maybe from the hiking around the desert but more likely due to the fact that Scott had fumbled another nerdy pop-culture reference when Stiles had lobbed it his way. “It’s supposed to be after a nuclear apocalypse. Hence the name, you know? Fallout? Like from the bombs? One of them is set in Vegas, and you spend a lot of time messing around in the Mojave. Except it turns out the Mojave in the real world looks exactly the same. It’s like the nuclear apocalypse already happened, here. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if a radscorpion came out of nowhere and tried to kill us.”

Scott laughed, startled, as he swung his backpack around to dig into the box of granola bars. He tossed one to Stiles before claiming a second of his own. “Radscorpion? What the heck is a _radscorpion_? Like a scorpion that’s more awesome than other scorpions?”

Stiles’ eyes rolled as he accepted the granola bar. “ _No_ , oh my God. They’re giant irradiated scorpions that are like the size of a dog at least, sometimes as big as like a Mini Cooper. They’re super mean and hard as fuck to kill because they’re super armored. I hate them. They’re almost the actual worst.”

“So you’re saying you’re expecting a scorpion the size of a car to come out and ruin our walk?” It was an absolutely ridiculous notion, but it was the sort of ridiculous Stiles had specialized in for years. It was familiar.

“I’m saying I don’t trust the desert, man. Anything could happen. I’ve learned by now not to discount possibilities for weirdness.”

Scott laughed again, for once feeling like all of the weirdness Stiles was alluding to was far from them, left back in the world of wet forests and cell phones and moving at high speeds. They lapsed into silence again on the tail end of that laughter, occupied with their granola bars. Scott even let his eyes slip closed, enjoying the feel of the sun on his skin.

That easy feeling of recharging shattered, abruptly, when Stiles spoke again. This time, his voice was tight and stressed, the way it only got when he felt he was in danger but wanted to pretend he wasn’t scared. “S-Scott…Scotty. Help. _Help me_.”

For one ridiculous moment, Scott thought maybe, somehow, Stiles’ _radscorpions_ had come to life and started in for an attack. He thought maybe they were under _assault_ , and that he’d let himself relax too far and for too long and just _missed_ the sounds or smells of someone approaching. He snapped his eyes open again and leapt to his feet, claws already extended.

No one was there. They were as alone as they had been twenty minutes ago, no humans or giant scorpions coming to get them. In confusion, Scott turned to look back at Stiles, at which point he understood implicitly.

There was a _lizard_. It was, Scott could admit, a fairly large one, maybe a foot and a half in length, with squat, solid features that reminded him of an iguana. He was pretty sure this kind of lizard was called a chuckwalla, a name that he’d always found really funny, but he could also see that Stiles was in no state to appreciate even something that funny. This was mostly because the chuckwalla had decided that Stiles was a threat to its dominance of its territory, and had climbed up onto Stiles’ leg, its back feet on the bare skin just above Stiles’ knee and its head closer to Stiles’ hip. It was staring straight at Stiles’ face and moving its head up and down in an abrupt, jerky motion.

It was the funniest thing Scott had seen in a long time. He could barely keep his laughter caged, pieces of it edging out around the sides of his words, “He thinks you’re here to steal his ladies. He’s trying to scare you off.”

“Well, it’s kind of _working_ , Scott, he has _claws_!” The amount of distress in Stiles’ voice was absolutely unreasonable given the nature of the animal. It only made Scott laugh _harder_.

Stiles was not impressed. The more unimpressed he became, the less good he became at standing still, and very soon Scott could foresee disaster either for Stiles or for the poor, harmless lizard trying to challenge Stiles to a dance battle. Shaking his head, Scott let his claws recede and instead stepped forward to very gently reach out and lift the chuckwalla off of Stiles. “Sorry, little guy. We’re just visiting. Promise. The girls are all yours.”

As soon as he was free of the lizard, Stiles was on his feet again. Scott made an almost exaggerated point of walking a few feet away before he released the chuckwalla. As much bravado as it had been showing with Stiles, it didn’t seem to want to stick around and attempt to intimidate Scott, too. The moment its little lizard claws hit the desert floor it was running, scrambling off between the rocks where the big, clumsy humans couldn’t follow.

The expression that Stiles was wearing when Scott turned back to look at him was so complex that even Scott’s extra werewolf senses couldn’t tell him what it was supposed to mean. Whatever it was, Scott couldn’t bring himself to be too worried about it. Still laughing, he added a broad grin to the equation as he moved to clap one hand onto Stiles’ shoulder. “Come on. Let’s start back towards town. Nobody has to know that you just got successfully dominated by a lizard about the size of a Subway sandwich.”

Like the sarcasm before it, there was something familiar and comforting about the sharp, exaggeratedly unhappy tone in Stiles’ voice as they turned to walk back the way they came. “Oh, _shut up_.”

 

 

 

 

Lunchtime found them huddled under the metal canopy at the Burger Den. They split a ‘family combo’ between them, two cheeseburgers and two boats of fries each. Stiles annoyed the people inside of the rundown little restaurant until they gave him extra pastrami to put on his burgers. Scott wasn’t sure where they’d even _gotten_ the pastrami from, but it must have been decent enough given the sounds Stiles kept making every time he took a bite. They weren’t remotely sexual. They were very solidly sexual. They had a downtown apartment in ‘sexual’.

They were _extremely_ distracting.

The sounds modulated when they transitioned from burgers to fries and then milkshakes, but never lost that filthy sort of edge that seemed designed to make a home in the bottom of Scott’s  brain, where they would never fall out. He was going to have to carry those sounds along with him for the rest of his life, rattling around inside him like loose change in a cupholder.

Stiles was unrepentant. Worse, Stiles was absolutely _unaware_ of the impact he was having. He just kept going, taking long, indulgent pulls on the milkshake as they braved the desert sun again, on their way from the Burger Den back to their motel room. The heart of the day’s heat was approaching, and while their room didn't have air conditioning, it still provided shade and protection from the sun that Stiles seemed to need.

 _Desperately_ seemed to need, Scott realized as they plodded along the side of the road. Stiles hadn't noticed yet, but his sunscreen application had been a little wanting over the back of his neck. Already, it was starting to turn a respectable shade of red, as loudly and obviously annoyed by the continued assault from the sun as Stiles himself was. In about an hour, Stiles would probably really start to feel it, and then Scott wouldn’t hear the end of it at all.

“Maybe I should let you borrow one of those hats I brought.” Scott said, without any preamble whatsoever.

Stiles frowned loudly enough that Scott could sense it even looking at the back of Stiles’ head. “Those snapbacks? _Why_? I’m--nah, dude, they are definitely not my thing.”

Jogging a couple of half-steps to bring him more or less in line with Stiles, Scott lifted his hand. It was still cold from holding on to his milkshake, and when he touched it to the skin on the back of Stiles’ neck, it felt like all of the chill was being sucked right out of it. His touch was so delicate, but Stiles hissed through his teeth as it happened.

Scott dropped his hand. “Okay, but they might be your _neck’s_ thing. If you wear them backwards you could protect your neck from the sun.”

They were almost to the motel now. Stiles’ face was starting to crumple inwards in what appeared to be distress. “What the fuck, dude! I put on the sunscreen! That’s supposed to prevent this exact thing!”

“Look, you obviously just forgot to cover the back of your neck enough. It’s not a big deal, we bought aloe. We can put some on when we get back in the room, it’ll be like two seconds.” Scott kept trying to sound soothing, sympathetic, even though he wasn’t burnt and wasn’t _going_ to burn, not between his natural coloring and the wolf’s accelerated healing.

Stiles rounded his shoulders and clearly regretted the motion immediately, hissing a second time as his shirt collar rubbed up against the irritated skin. “It’s a big deal to me. The sunscreen should have protected me! It betrayed me. I knew this would happen. This is why I never go out in the sunlight. It’s _deadly_.”

Scott rolled his eyes as he worked the key in the lock of their door. “You’re not _dying_. You’re just very dramatic. Go on, sit on the end of the bed, I’ll find the aloe and you can quit your career as a diva, okay?”

The bed creaked with Stiles’ weight as he dropped onto the foot as instructed. Scott closed the door behind them and moved directly to the bathroom, rummaging through their things until he founds the aloe gel they’d bought earlier. They’d only been in the room about a day, but already all of their toiletries had merged together into one somewhat-confusing mess, absolutely no delineation between what belonged to whom. That was probably because their _lives_ held no real distinctions of that type, when he gave it any honest thought. Giving it honest thought tended to make a weird feeling curl around in his chest, like a worm. Scott avoided that when at all possible.

Thankfully, it didn’t take him long to find the aloe and return to the main room, where Stiles waited. He pursed his mouth in thought as he approached, gesturing with one hand. “Take your shirt off.”

The squint that Stiles gave him was openly suspicious. “ _Why_?”

“Because aloe stains like crazy and there’s definitely not a place in this town where we can wash clothes.”

Stiles clearly didn’t like the answer, but he accepted it after a moment’s thought, reaching down to grab his shirt by the hem and pull it up over his head.

The contrast between the parts of Stiles’ skin that had seen the sun and the parts that had not was striking. Anything that had been protected by the cloth of his shirt was still the same milk-white pale that Scott had always known his friend to be, while the space between his collar and the edge of his hairline was steadily growing more crimson. It was almost startling, and Scott found himself murmuring a sound of sympathy as he clambered onto the bed just behind Stiles, where he could sit and have easy access to the back of his neck. “Does it hurt already?”

Rounding his shoulders just faintly, Stiles winced so heavily that Scott could _hear_ it in the tone of his voice. “...yeah. It kinda does.”

The second sound Scott made was somewhat less sympathetic and a little bit more scolding. It came out more like tutting than he meant it to. Luckily any comments Stiles could have made about that were obliterated by Scott beginning to apply the first layer of aloe vera with his fingertips. Stiles winced and hissed through his teeth instead, and Scott apologized quietly. “Sorry, sorry. I’m trying to be gentle. This’ll help, though, I promise.”

Silence stretched for a few moments while Scott worked the aloe into Stiles’ aggravated skin. He was generous with it, slathering the area until all he could smell was the pungent aroma of the aloe, masking even the scent of their mutual sweat and sun-baked skin. “I’m serious about the hat, though, dude. If you let this get too much more sun it’s going to turn into an actual problem instead of a mild annoyance.”

“You call this a mild annoyance?” Stiles sounded more amused than anything. That was a good sign.

“You aren’t puking everywhere and passing out from heat stroke, so _yes_. I call it a very mild annoyance.”

“No, instead I get to sit here feeling like you dumped a whole bottle of K.Y. on the back of my neck just to let it get _sticky_. That’s great, too. Extra fun for me!” Stiles’ complaints were a force of habit, now a familiar thing even in a landscape that was growing increasingly less unfamiliar.

Scott snorted faintly, putting just a little extra aloe on his fingertips to give himself the excuse to run them over the shiny-slick surface of Stiles’ sunburn. The skin there probably would have felt very warm, if he wasn’t a werewolf who ran several degrees hotter than normal _all the time_. “How would you even know what a whole bottle of K.Y. would feel like?”

He could have sworn the color on Stiles’ neck deepened. “Let’s just say Malia can be really clumsy for somebody with animal reflexes, sometimes, and just you don’t ask any more questions you don’t want any answers to.”

Scott figured he was somewhat less adverse to the answers to those questions than Stiles thought he was, but he let it go uncommented on. Instead, he leaned forward and very gently placed a kiss on the back of Stiles’ neck, right over one of his vertebrae. “Well, buck up, this is for your own good. You’re all set now.”

It wasn’t until he’d leaned back entirely and realized that the _entirety_ of Stiles’ neck--and down well onto his shoulderblades--was now red that Scott realized what he’d done.

An almost tense stillness settled in over the room.

Instinctively, Scott tried to check in on Stiles’ scent, to get an idea of what his friend was thinking, so suddenly motionless and quiet, but all he could smell was the aloe. Today, Stiles’ chemosignals would keep their secrets.

Scott looked down at his hands, feeling his own face flush.

The moments stretched out like too-warm taffy, and finally Stiles shifted, moving like he was going to get off of the bed. “Hey, I’m gonna play something on my 3DS for a while, if that’s okay with you?”

Apparently they weren’t going to talk about it. That was fine. Scott was used to Stiles not wanting to talk about it, when ‘it’ was just about _anything_ that meant a change in the status-quo or a potential for disaster. He remembered, vaguely, Stiles once telling him that he preferred to ignore problems until they went away. That was fine. This was normal, Scott could embrace it. He had books, he had things he could occupy himself with that weren’t Stiles. “Sure, dude. Knock yourself out. ...Not literally, please.”

Stiles laughed as he shifted to go dig through his bag in search of the game system. Scott watched, and wondered quietly why, for the first time, _not talking about it_ felt less like a reassurance and more like a thorn jammed up under his lowest ribs.

 

 

Like the night before, when the sun finished creeping its way down below the horizon, the temperature plummeted. Unlike the night before, Stiles didn’t seem to have any desire to even pretend he could tough out the relative cold on his own. He seemed to have pushed all the way through any potential awkwardness with one shoulder down and come through to the other side of almost aggressive commitment to the whole bed-sharing endeavour. Once they had trudged their way through another tin-cans-over-sterno dinner and taken their turns scraping off the day’s grime and sweat with a wet washcloth in the bathroom, Stiles was immediately climbing under the sheets, curling up on ‘his’ side of the bed and presenting Scott with the shallow curve of his spine, covered in a loose t-shirt.

It wasn’t an invitation, not the way Scott wanted it to be. Scott _knew_ that. His heart wasn’t so clear on the message. It tripped over itself again and again as he approached the bed, forced him to take a moment to just _look_ at Stiles, the pink-red of the developing sunburn on the back of his neck, the broadness of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist. It wasn’t even the first time on this trip that Scott had noticed that, or the way Stiles’ muscles moved beneath the fabric of his shirts. It was just that, in this moment, Scott was beginning to realize how _much_ he’d been thinking about it, that there was something fundamentally different in the way he was looking at or thinking about Stiles. It was exciting. It was _terrifying_. Scott couldn’t say exactly which feeling was stronger.

He was pulled out of his mental reverie by a sad, put-upon noise from Stiles. Scott refocused on his friend only to realize that Stiles was legitimately wiggling under the sheets, mostly hips-first, while making that sad sound. “ _Cooo-oold_.”

Scott had never been able to refuse Stiles of much, much less _this_. He allowed himself a low chuckle in the bottom of his throat as he came to take his place in the bed.

Part of him wanted to avoid thinking too heavily on the concept of _his place_ in the bed.

The rest of him, which was the part of him that was also settling into the mattress and draping one arm over Stiles’ waist to tug him closer, wanted to think about it a _lot_.

It wanted to think about how close Stiles’ body was, reflecting Scott’s own heat back to him. It wanted to think about the scent of Stiles’ sweat, beneath the smells of aloe and soap, embedded in the hair so close to his nose. It wanted to think about how they could do this always, how _he_ could do this always, if Stiles would let him. It wanted to think about Stiles’ lithe body, sweat-lined for reasons other than the desert heat, either over him or under him or just _around_ him, about the way Scott was all but certain Stiles’ face would go slack and unfocused as the pleasure took him, about the way Scott was also certain _he_ could be the person to bring that pleasure to Stiles.

It wanted to think a lot about the hard-on that was stubbornly developing between his legs with absolutely no respect for Stiles’ proximity. Or maybe too much respect for it.

Scott’s heart was thundering in his throat, in the roof of his mouth. His whole body felt so wound up, his skin too-taut, like it was stretched over bones too big for all of it. He felt like he was going to explode, but the last thing he wanted to do was to do it _here_ , where it was quiet and dark and chill and he would get the guts he struggled to keep inside all over Stiles’ unsuspecting back. Stiles had been through enough over the years. He deserved better.

Somehow, in the way he always seemed to, Stiles recognized Scott’s upset. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d been half-asleep previously. He rolled backwards just a little bit, maybe ignoring the way that Scott’s _little problem_ had to be pressing into the small of his back. Stiles lifted one hand and smeared it around until he could find Scott’s leg, patting just above his knee. The bare skin-on-skin contact made Scott jolt at least as much as the sound of Stiles’ voice in the room. “ _Heyyy_ , Scotty, relax, okay? Sleepy time. Do the sleepin’ thing, you’re all right.”

He was right, at least in the way he meant it. They were relatively safe, out in the middle of the desert. No one really knew where they were, other than the pack that lived here, one that bent itself backwards trying to accommodate them and then stay out of their way. There was none of the tension in the air that constantly existed in Beacon Hills, radiated outwards from the Nemeton. There was no tug on the small hairs on the back of Scott’s neck, nothing that meant that something was going to come out of the darkness and try to steal or change or mutilate either or both of them.

This was, for once, a far more mundane sort of danger, the sort of thing teenagers all over the world experienced in much the same way. Maybe that was why it had taken him so off-guard. Scott had just about forgotten that they were teenagers at all.

Stiles gave his leg a second pat, like he was trying to work his assurances in through Scott’s skin, and turned back over.

Scott closed his eyes and tried to let himself listen to the desert as its own creatures of the night woke up. He listened for the owl he’d heard the night before, or its prey, or even the scuffle of Stiles’ lizard friend going to ground for the evening. Yet, somehow, no matter how he strained his ears, Scott found himself always brought back to the sound of the cool air moving through Stiles’ lungs, the faint rasping that wasn’t quite a snore, and the steady chugging of Stiles’ heart.

He let those sounds lull him to sleep, and eventually Scott couldn’t find it in him to even feel guilty about it.

 

 

 

Scott woke up belly-down on the mattress with Stiles’ armpit squarely planted in his face.

To be fair to Stiles, there wasn't much chance this had been intentional on his part. He had always been a chaotic sleeper, prone to putting each of his limbs as far from the other three as physically possible. Scott had known this for years. Frankly, he was mostly shocked that he hadn't woken up in a similar state yesterday.

Maybe it would have been easier if he _had._

Maybe it would have been easier if he’d had any preparation for the feeling of the toned lines of Stiles’ body being pressed up against him, before he had gone crashing right through the realization of the exact nature of his feelings towards Stiles. Easier to know what it felt like to have Stiles so instinctively fit his breathing into the space between Scott’s own breaths.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been so paralyzed by Stiles’ nearness that he found it easier to keep his nose in a sweaty armpit than sort out how to move away.

Scott tried to look on the bright side of it all. At least he was getting a chance to really analyze and catalogue Stiles’ scent.

That was honestly probably not the kind of thought processes normal people had.

Eventually, Stiles began to stir. He brought his arm down against Scott’s skull, unconsciously ungentle, and then startled, rolling half off of the bed entirely as he jolted upright. Scott gave a long, low sigh. It wasn’t that he was left cold without Stiles cuddling to him--already the desert sun was making it impossible to be _cold._ He shouldn’t have _felt_ cold.

Yet, somehow, Scott also had no better word for the absence that he felt pricking on his skin when Stiles separated from it.

“Oh, _thank God_.” Scott decided to try to normalize any of what was going on, all too cognizant of the fact that Stiles was just as aware of his wakefulness as he was of Stiles’. “Your armpit wasn’t exactly the most fun environment for my nose to wake up in.”

Stiles turned his face towards Scott as if he were really seeing him for the first time, and made a slightly annoyed, slightly disgusted sound. He reached down to shove at one of Scott’s bare shoulders, mostly just pressing him down into the sheets. “ _Rude,_ and also _shut up_. Like your armpits smell like roses.”

“They do.” Scott asserted, rolling so that he could lounge on his side and peer up at Stiles. As long as he was covered by the sheets from the waist down, it was safe enough. As safe as he ever was, which frankly wasn’t ever _very_ safe. “Werewolf perks, man. Fast healing, super strength, better senses, and a naturally pleasant and floral fragrance.”

Skepticism settled into its familiar home on Stiles’ features. “Of all the many words I’d use to describe your fragrance, _pleasant_ and _floral_ would not appear on a list.”

Scott twitched an  eyebrow upwards, feigning scandal in exchange for a more simple interest. “Oh, okay, so what _would_ you include on a list, then? Since you have such a discerning nose and all.”

This question apparently required actual consideration, given how Stiles’ features immediately flattened out into thoughtfulness. He came around to his answer slowly, as if he’d weighed all of his ideas and notions very carefully. “Warm. Strong. A little wild. Musky.”

“ _Musky_?” Scott repeated, thinking for some reason of the heavy, unpleasant scents that accompanied animals like oxen when they’d been they’d working too long in the sun.

Stiles grumbled, the thoughtfulness fading away beneath something that looked and smelled different. More like _embarrassment_ , for all that Scott felt that was impossible. “Yeah, musky. Not like a bad musky, like whatever smell that is that they put into cologne and stuff that they call musk. Like that.”

“So you’re going to claim that I don’t smell _pleasant and floral_ , but you’re going to turn around and tell me I smell like cologne?”

This time, what he got planted in his face was a broad palm. Stiles shoved at his face, trying to push it back to the other side of the bed as Stiles rolled over and onto his feet. “Shut up, nerd. Dibs on the bathroom. Then you don’t have to _smell me_ any more.”

Scott sat up and scooted to the head of the bed, so that he could sit with his bare back against the relative cool wall as he watched Stiles retreat into the en suite. He wished, sometimes, that he could see inside the chaos of Stiles’ whirlwind mind and make sense of what was going on within it. He couldn't tell if Stiles even remembered the tiny transgression of a kiss that Scott planted at the top of his spine yesterday, or if he was dwelling on it or choosing to ignore it. There had been so many times in their lives when Scott had known without any doubts what was on Stiles’ mind and the direction in which his train of thought was chugging along.

Now was not one of those times. Now, Stiles’ skull was an enigma box to Scott, and he despaired of ever getting it open.

Sighing, Scott dragged his hands up to the top of his head, digging his fingers in deep through his curls. He needed to get himself together, or this was going to all blow up in his face. He let his head roll back on his shoulders, thudding gently against the wall, and tried not to listen too much to the sounds of Stiles splashing around quietly in the bathroom.

Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, Stiles came padding back out of the bathroom, hair wet and rumpled. He was wearing the makeshift shorts Scott had fashioned for him yesterday, but he was holding his shirt in one hand, the bottle of aloe in the other one. He looked between them before looking back up to Scott, expression more pleading than anything. “So, I kinda need your help.”

“Sure, buddy.” Scott agreed easily, pulling his head back up so that he could make eye contact. With Stiles’ eyes. And definitely not any part of Stiles that weren’t his eyes, no matter how _right there in front of Scott_ those parts were. He lifted one hand, expecting to be given the aloe.

To his surprise, what he got was the shirt. “This first. Could you just--ditch the sleeves. Annihilate them. Show them the real power of a True Alpha and make them into headbands or something?”

Scott spiked his eyebrows, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he looked down at the fabric in his hand, popping the claws of the other one out with no more fanfare than he might have used for a pair of scissors. “Desert heat still kicking your pale ass?”

He could just about see Stiles’ theatrical wince out of the corners of his vision, as he started to shred the shirt’s seam. “ _Right now_ it’s more like the desert heat is kicking my pale _armpits_ , but, I mean, it really comes down to a sort of cumulative effect of _awful_.”

A smile quirked along Scott’s mouth, and he made sure to rip down the side of the shirt a little extra, to give Stiles’ _armpits_ enough room to breathe. “You know, I find it really ironic that I’m the one with the heightened body temperature but _you’re_ the one who can’t shut up about how uncomfortable he is.”

“ _Rude_.” Stiles scolded, his wince turning into a sharp frown. “Just because you have some extra cheaty boost to adapting and _surviving_ or whatever doesn’t mean you get to make fun of me.”

“I’m pretty sure that being your best friend is what means I get to make fun of you.”

 

Hand now propped up on his hips, Stiles didn’t seem to be able to fight that logic. His eyes hooded a little, one eyebrow lifting, and he wobbled his head sideways through the air in a familiar gesture, making a quiet, non-committal noise. Scott chuckled and turned the shirt over to tend to the opposite sleeve.

They remained like that, Scott working in silence, for a few moments before Stiles spoke again. He’d let his hands drop to fidget them at his sides. “Did you mean it, about lending me one of your snapbacks?”

The question puzzled Scott. He couldn’t figure out why it even needed asking, given they’d been in a place with their friendship for _years_ that meant neither of them particularly asked before helping themselves to the other’s stuff. It was especially strange for Stiles to be the one to ask, since he was generally never taken with fits of politeness.

Scott glanced up at Stiles, distantly worried that something was wrong, that their foundation was shifting because of Scott’s own stupid blundering. Stiles’ face revealed nothing at all, so Scott mostly tried not to bite at his lip too much as he looked back down at the shirt. “Of course? Help yourself, dude, whatever you need to feel comfortable.”

Stiles hesitated.

It wasn’t much, but it was there, a long enough pause for both of them to become aware of it, and become aware of each other’s awareness. It unsettled something in Scott’s chest, almost caused him to tear the entire side of this shirt open with a nervous claw. Instead, he retracted them, holding the fabric helplessly in both hands as he looked up at Stiles.

Naturally, Stiles didn’t explain himself. Instead, he turned towards their luggage, digging through it until he found Scott’s bag and, eventually, one of the hats inside it. He used one fist to punch it back into shape from where it had crumpled in on itself as he came back towards the bed. There was no preamble in the way Stiles turned and flopped himself down on the edge, pointing at his neck with the hand not holding the hat. “Please?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Scott breathed out the words, all too aware of how fragile they suddenly seemed. All too aware of the way his fingers shook, just faintly, when he lifted them up to slather the first layer of aloe onto Stiles’ red skin. “Whatever you need to be comfortable.”

Stiles’ only response was a quiet, seemingly contented little hum.

 

 

 

 

Scott had thought that getting out of the cramped, closed quarters of their motel room would release the weird tension that was starting to develop between them. He had thought that the big desert sky would have been a tall enough ceiling that all of it could have floated up and far, far away.

He had thought wrong.

Whatever invisible cloud that haunted them was too heavy to just rise up like that.

Instead it clung to their shoulders, a shroud that muffled the sun as they walked back towards town. It made Scott’s voice sound too-quiet to his own ears when he noted, “So Rick invited us to come have lunch with him and his wife today. I figured we didn’t have anything to do, so I told them that we’d go. At least we can get some actual cooked food out of it instead of going to the Burger Den again.”

Stiles stretched his arms out, first up towards the sky and then behind his neck, holding one in place with the other by its elbow. In shorts and a tank top, with Scott’s snapback protecting his burnt neck with its brim, Stiles seemed like some strange, alternate reality version of himself. He seemed _lackadaisical_ , which was absolutely not a word Scott would have thought to describe Stiles with until this very moment. Stiles’ voice was equally unconcerned, which was equally disconcerting, “Yeah, _but_ , the Burger Den has pastrami. It was pretty good pastrami.”

Scott rolled his eyes, watching first Stiles’ face, then his shoes as they scuffed through the dirt. “You can get pastrami anywhere, though. Rick and his pack are doing so much for us, including fixing your Jeep _for free_. I’m pretty sure we can manage showing up for lunch.”

“Maybe _they’ll_ have pastrami.” Stiles sounded easy-going and speculative, letting his arms drop back to his sides. “Maybe Rick’ll give me any kind of ETA on Roscoe. Maybe one day we’ll actually _leave_ this town. I’m not holding my breath too long on that.”

The statement startled Scott into amusement. It was something he’d never expected either of them to say about any place that wasn’t Beacon Hills. Maybe he’d never expected them to ever be stuck anywhere else.

Then again, they may have been in the same town for the past few days, but Scott was certain that they were going _somewhere_ , maybe faster than he was really ready.

They passed quickly into the portion of the walk where they didn’t really speak, mostly because Stiles acclimated to things very slowly and he still wasn’t used to all the walking they were doing in the desert sun. It was difficult to keep up a meaningful conversation when one half of the conversational partners was wheezing and gasping dramatically for breath. Scott saved them both the frustration and savored the rare silence instead.

Behind the mechanic shop and a small row of abandoned one-room huts was a small house. Its stucco had been painted the same bright, featureless white as the trailers that made up their motel, offset by dusty blue shutters. Most of the fenced-in yard had been covered with chalky gravel, but some effort had been put into landscaping the few desert plants and one tree on the property. Scott could pick up the scent of _wolf_ distinctly when he swung the fence gate open.

Fortunately, he could also pick up the scents of chorizo and warm tortillas encouraging him to keep a quick pace on the short path to the door.

Stiles was still out of breath by the time they knocked on the screen door, panting heavily enough that Scott could envision him standing there, tongue hanging out of his mouth, without actually looking over his shoulder. He could still envision that ridiculous image being the first one to greet Rick as he opened the door up to let them inside. Rick’s slightly stunned expression, pointed over Scott’s shoulder, seemed to confirm it.

“Hey, uh. Rick? Thanks for inviting us over.” Scott immediately inserted himself into the situation before Stiles could use that open mouth to make things more awkward. He took a step forward, right hand extended. “Sorry about my, uh--”

“Don’t worry about it, Alpha McCall.” Rick took his hand in a brief shake, giving Stiles one more glance before starting to pull back into the house and make room for passage. “I live in the Mojave. He isn’t that strange.”

Scott suddenly, _desperately_ hoped Stiles wouldn’t take that as a challenge. He gave a stern warning look over his shoulder as he entered the house. “You might be surprised. But just...just Scott is fine. You don’t need to do all of that Alpha stuff.”

“Just Stiles is fine for me, too,” Stiles piped up helpfully, even though literally no one had asked, even though both Rick and Scott ended up turning to peer at him critically after he did.

Luckily, before the silence could stretch out enough to become uncomfortable, Rick turned and led them through the small house to the dining room, where his wife Rosa already waited.

Rick and Rosa--Scott realized he didn’t even know their last name--had clearly pulled out all of the stops for this lunch. Every available space on the table was already occupied, mostly with little dishes of street-style foods that Scott hadn’t seen in person since he was a small child visiting his _abuela_. The chorizo he’d smelled had been fried into taquitos, there were sopes and bowls for serving up what was probably menudo, but most importantly as far as Scott was concerned was the large bowl of --

\-- “Chapulines!” He couldn’t help himself. Scott said the word like a happy cry and immediately snatched up a handful, stuffing them into his mouth before he realized maybe he should have asked or waited for them to say grace or _something_ before he started eating. He shielded his mouth with the hand he’d just used to feed himself so he could mutter a sheepish. “ _Sorry_.”

Their hosts only seemed amused, indicating that they were welcome to serve themselves with anything on the table. Scott’s shoulders slumped through relief as he finished his mouthful.

The relief was short lived, because in the scant amount of time it took him to chew and swallow, Stiles was leaning in to examine what Scott was eating. His curiosity faded immediately into surprise and something edging in towards disgust, all with his face too close to the bowl. “Oh my _God_ , are those--”

“Dried grasshoppers.” Scott cut him off, reaching up with one hand to grab the back of Stiles’ shirt and pull him upright again. The other hand reached out to select a single chapulin from the bowl and offer it towards Stiles. “They’re really popular in Mexico. They’re kinda spicy, you should try them, they’re really good.”

Stiles made the kind of face Scott might have expected him to make if Scott had asked him to eat bugs that were still alive. “Uh. No. Nooo, no thank you. Forever. No thank you to dried grasshoppers _forever_.”

“Your loss.” Scott determined, and ate the chapulin in his hand too. The crunch drew a satisfying flinch out of Stiles.

Rick and Rosa shared a look that Scott could only interpret as the kind of unspoken communication that formed between people who’d moved in close quarters with each other for years. Rosa leaned in over the table, mostly watching Stiles intently as if she was waiting for another poor reaction, offering, “Can I get either of you something to drink? We have horchata, diet coke, water…”

Stiles was won over the moment horchata had been mentioned. His whole expression brightened, and Rick relaxed in the background as if Stiles had passed some kind of unspoken test.

Once Stiles had been loaded up with a generous glass of horchata and steered safely away from the chapulines, they all settled into a pattern of food and dialogue that was almost comfortable. Scott learned that while both Rick and Rosa were native to California, neither of them had been born or raised anywhere near Yermo. They had met young and Rick had been bitten comparatively late, during a construction site accident when he was in his mid-twenties that he politely but firmly declined to describe. Rosa was still human, although she was quick to point out with flashing, fierce eyes that this didn’t slow her down when it came to dealing with the pack in the slightest. They’d moved to Yermo after collecting a misfit pack of betas without a real Alpha, trying to keep them all out of trouble as best they could. The middle of nowhere was an easy trade for peace, quiet, and keeping the blood off of everyone’s claws.

There was something familiar about their story that made Scott’s chest feel simultaneously too tight and far too large.

As it turned out, Rosa had a rapier sharp tongue which she honed on the whetstone of Stiles’ blunt force honesty before the pair of them seemed to decide, simultaneously and independently, to be something approaching friends. Rosa fueled Stiles with enough cinnamon-rich horchata to start him vibrating at a new frequency, and then took him to the back yard to show off her desert-hardy collection of druidically significant plants.

It felt just a little bit like an excuse to get Rick alone with Scott for a few moments. In all honesty, Scott didn’t mind.

He didn’t even mind when Rick turned towards him with the obvious intent to make conversation, confirming Scott’s suspicions. The expression on Rick’s face seemed to be an almost theatrical image of thoughtfulness. “So you and Stiles have known each other for a long time? And he’s not upset about you being a werewolf?”

“He was my friend before I was bitten,” Scott admits, looking down at the drink he was swirling absently in his hand. “He was basically there when it happened. He was actually the first one to figure it out. Even when I was still trying to get control of it all, he wasn’t afraid. He’s been there the whole time.”

“And out of everyone in your pack, including your own actual Betas, it’s _Stiles_ who you chose to go to Vegas with you for this summit.” Rick’s tone had started to grow a little leading, although it hadn’t lost its native kindness.

Despite that, Scott found himself frowning, just a little bit. He looked up to search Rick’s face, trying to determine exactly what Rick was actually feeling. His scent was settled and easy, heart evenly paced, which gave Scott no clues whatsoever. “Yeah. So? He’s my best friend. He’s super smart. He may seem like a complete flake but he’s better with a lot of the details than I am. Either of my Betas I’d have spent most of the time trying to make sure I felt they were safe, instead of focusing on the summit.”

Rick shrugged, splitting his attention evenly between Scott and the pair just visible through the window on the back door. Scott could see Stiles lean over to touch some plant in the yard, only to recoil like it had stung him. Rosa’s laughter was mostly a pantomime as Stiles stuck his finger in his mouth.

“You might have spent more time trying to make sure he was safe than you realize.” Rick finally noted. “You probably would have had some leeway because you’re a True Alpha, but the truth is that others don’t really understand keeping a human that close. Most of them don’t have any restraint. If they have the option for the bite, they take it.”

Scott could feel something shifting in his chest again. He looked back up to Stiles in the yard and decided what he was feeling was _protective_. He didn’t like the idea of being harassed at the summit by his choice of company, or the fact that he let _Stiles_ make his own decisions. “He doesn’t want it. We’ve talked about it, since I became an Alpha. What it would mean for him. I know his terms. We’re not anywhere near them. I wouldn’t do that to him, I couldn’t be that selfish.”

“I guess that’s why you’re a True Alpha.” There was a smile that accompanied Rick’s inevitable conclusion, something distant and wistful. “It’s not easy. People don’t understand. But we moved out here so we could do things the right way, without anybody getting in the way. I guess I’m just glad to see that there’s other people who do things the right way, too. I’m glad that you’re willing to fight for it.”

The uneasiness moved from his chest to grip at the base of his spine. Scott didn’t want to _have_ to fight for anything, much less Stiles’ rights to be as Stiles wanted to be. He knew he would if he had to. He’d done it in the past. He would do it every time he had to. “...yeah.”

Coughing like he was slightly embarrassed by his own words, Rick turned, trying to smile at Scott on the way through towards the kitchen. “You know, you’re really...exceptionally lucky.”

The horchata in his glass seemed to turn sour even as Scott sipped it. He frowned, struggling with his instinctive desire to start shouting, to insist that nothing about his life was _lucky_ , not from being bitten sophomore year to having been saddled with this responsibility he never asked for to having his first love die in his arms while he was helpless to do anything about it. It took him a few too many moments to fight back the lump in his throat and say, more diplomatically, “Honestly, the True Alpha thing isn’t...that great. It’s a way bigger deal to everyone else.”

Rick paused in the threshold between the dining room and the kitchen, blinking twice. His head tipped to the side, and he made a sound that was half incredulous and half an honest laugh. “What? No. I meant what you and Stiles have. It doesn’t happen to most people. Even when it does, a lot of people are too scared to make a move on it. But you know what it’s like to lose. So, I just meant, you’re lucky to have it. The bravery to hold onto that in the face of everything isn’t luck, but I think you have that too.”

The horchata was less _sour_ , then, and more like ash, absolutely insufficient for the task of wetting his suddenly-dry mouth. Scott blinked back at Rick, stupidly, before he rasped a hushed, “...yeah.”

 

 

 

 

They left Rick and Rosa’s house with a plastic bag packed full of leftovers and a promise that Roscoe would be ready to roll tomorrow. The first third of the walk back to the motel was punctuated with Stiles’ excited, triumphant crowing that his Jeep would be once more functional. It was too late for them to make it to the summit and be able to participate with anything significant, but at least they’d be able to leave the desert. Stiles seemed giddy, even ecstatic, about the idea.

Scott wasn’t so sure. He was in no rush to fling himself headlong out of the strange little peace they seemed to have discovered in Yermo. He didn’t want to go back to the place where being a True Alpha meant anything other than free food and car repair.

He didn’t want to leave before he’d figured out where the solid ground was, under all the shifting sand he suddenly felt made up his relationship with Stiles.

The second third of the walk was quiet, but slow. Stiles wasn’t breathing heavily or straining under the sun, which was a relief. Stiles _was_ spending an inordinate amount of time watching Scott as they walked, which was the opposite of a relief.

The last third of the walk started with Stiles looking down at his feet, scuffing dirt up over their toes with every step, and demanding, “Okay, dude, out with it.”

“Out with what?” Scott knew he wasn’t going to be able to feign ignorance for long. Stiles was the kind of person who got a puzzle in his teeth and went at it like a dog with a chew toy. He had a single-minded focus for seemingly random things that existed in complete defiance of his inability to focus on anything at all otherwise. Scott had long since learned to recognize the expression that accompanied that laser-like focus. There was no escape.

Stiles cast a judgemental look across the middle space between them, but he humored the question. “Whatever it is that has you all cramped up and away somewhere in your head. You’ve been weird since we woke up but you’ve been extra weird since lunch.”

Scott winced, mostly at the ground, too aware that Stiles was watching him do it. Evasion wasn’t his strong suit. “Extra weird like how?”

This time the judgemental look lasted longer. Stiles started to walk along the side of the road as if he were balancing on a beam, arms lifted up from his sides. It seemed so casual, so carefree. It didn’t at all match the way Stiles asked, voice heavy, “Is it me?”

The question seemed to come so far out of left field Scott felt it had hit him square between the eyes. It didn’t matter that it was a correct guess. He stopped walking entirely and stared at his own hat protecting the back of Stiles’ head. “Stiles, _what_?”

Gravel crunched under Stiles’ feet as he took a few steps further along. He spun on one heel, stumbled, and righted himself all in less time than it took Scott to try and reach out to help him. Even once he settled back on both feet, there was something helpless in the way Stiles looked at him. “I mean...I know we kind of went through a rough patch with Theo. Or, you know. The roughest patch. I know for a while, we were kind of…”

Stiles gestured between himself and Scott listlessly, like he thought Scott would know what that one gesture meant. The thing was, Scott did. It meant _not us._

“But I thought we were past that. Or through it? I definitely thought we weren't _there_ anymore, anyway.” Stiles shrugged, listless, and turned his head to look in any direction that wasn't Scott. “But now you're all quiet and distant and the more we sit here in one spot and don't have anything moving around to distract us, the more I'm sure you're keeping something from me.”

The plastic bag suddenly felt like a lead weight in Scott’s hands. He breathed Stiles’ name quietly, unable to get any other word out of his abruptly tight throat.

Stiles filled in the empty space. His voice pitched up, something like genuine distress creeping into his scent. “I mean, I don't know if we just weren't as better as I thought we were when we left, or if I said or did something and didn't realize, or maybe you're mad at me because Roscoe broke down and stranded us here, or it’s my _clothes_ or--”

“Stiles, Stiles, Stiles!” Scott lurched forward awkwardly, the hand that wasn’t holding the food lifting and trying to mollify his obvious distress. “No, no, that isn’t it at all. I promise. Okay? We’re good. We’re definitely good, we’re not … I’m not mad at you. Honestly, I’m kind of glad Roscoe broke down. I wasn’t really excited about the summit, _or_ Vegas. I didn’t really want to go to the summit in the first place. I’ve been _happy_ being here for a few days. This has been _good_. Okay? I’m not mad.”

The nod that Stiles gave didn’t seem to actually agree with or acknowledge anything. He darted his eyes to Scott’s face and then away just as sharply, looking out over the desert when he asked, “Do you regret having brought me here instead of one of the others? Liam, maybe?”

Scott took another step forward and settled his free hand over one of Stiles’. He squeezed at Stiles’ knuckles, hoping to be able to press his reassurance in through Stiles’ skin. “ _No_. I don’t regret having brought you here. I wouldn’t have regretted it if we’d made it to the summit like we were supposed to. I asked you to come with me because I wanted it to be you. I’m happy to be stuck here with you because it’s you. Stiles, I don’t know why you think I suddenly hate you, but nothing could be further from the truth. There isn’t anyone else I’d want at my side. For _anything_.”

Stiles’ eyes returned to Scott’s face only bore into it with a too-wide gaze. Scott was abruptly aware that something was riding on this answer, something important. He had no idea what it was, or where the right answer lay. Stiles asked the question so quietly. “You mean that? For _anything_?”

Immediately, Scott’s heartbeat started to pick up. He thought of the difference in the way he had started looking at Stiles, since they’d been stranded here in Yermo. He thought of the heat of Stiles’ body under the sheets at night, how he wanted to be able to do more than just feel that heat radiate at him from inches away. He thought of all of it, of the sun in Stiles’ eyes that made them go molten, like they were right now, and Scott was sure the only answer he could even give, here, was total honesty. Even if Stiles had no idea what it meant, or what Scott was really saying. He tightened his grip on Stiles’ hand and met his eyes, voice steady as he reiterated, “Yes, Stiles. For **anything**.”

Stiles nodded again, as uncertain as the last time. He let their hands remain for a few moments before giving Scott’s fingers a faint squeeze and then letting go. Scott took that to mean their discussion was over and Stiles was over feeling vulnerable.

They made it maybe fifteen feet further down the road before Stiles spoke up in a tone so obviously casual it was constructed. “Hey, actually, I forgot I wanted to pick something up in town. You should go on without me.”

Scott stopped. His feet, his breath, maybe his heart, he wasn't totally sure. “What? Stiles, dude, no, I can go back with you, it's not a big deal.”

Stiles gestured past Scott to the motel down the road. “Man, we’re like...almost there. It isn't your fault I forgot. You shouldn't have to suffer, right?”

“It wouldn't be suffering.” Scott protested with a frown.

“Just go read that book I know you've had in your bag the whole time and haven't touched because of me, okay? I'll be super quick, I’ll catch you up.” Stiles leaned across the distance between them to give the particular brand of shoulder pat that had always meant he had made up his mind.

There was no point in trying to protest it.

With a perfunctory smile, Stiles turned and started trudging back the way they came. Every time he glanced over his shoulder to be sure Scott wasn't following he managed to somehow look more sullen than the last.

Scott didn't follow him. He did watch Stiles’ back retreat for a long time and wondered if he had just broken something too deep between them to show the bruise.

 

 

 

Reading was impossible. He had tried, he really had. Scott had struggled for what felt like years, trying in vain to retain more than every word in fifty. The book may have been intense and engaging, but Scott just didn't know. The noise in his head was far too loud for him to focus.

He kept playing back the conversation on the side of the road, trying to pull it apart at the seams. Part of him wanted to be angry. It was just like Stiles to accuse someone of hiding something just to turn around and prove to be hiding something himself. The amount of self-awareness that Stiles lacked, in certain situations, would boggle Scott’s mind until they were both old men.

Provided his awkward half-confession hadn't ruined his chance to see Stiles as an old man.

 _That_ was the thought that kept filling his mind, no matter how righteous his potential annoyance with Stiles was. The fear that gripped him was the idea that he’d destroyed something essential to his own existence, shredded something vital to his operation. Maybe they hadn’t been as _better_ as he’d thought. Maybe he’d gone too far, crossed a line. Scott couldn’t know, because the moment he’d had the opportunity to do it, Stiles had run.

By the time Scott had hacked his way through to the fourth sentence in the chapter, the sun had just started to set. In the desert, with the sky so clear and cloudless, the air went thick when sunset started, painting everything in golds that would later deepen into oranges and reds. It was beautiful, a singular sort of experience, and the first night that they’d spent in Yermo, Scott had opened the blinds just to enjoy it. Now, all he could think as the sunlight quickened and crept across the floor was how long it meant that Stiles had been gone.

Outside, a car pulled up, crunching gravel under the tires. This wouldn’t have been remarkable, except that in the entire time that they’d been staying in the motel, Scott had only heard a car move when Rosa went home for the evening or arrived for work. It was well past Rosa’s going-home time, which made this peculiar.

It was also followed up by the sound of someone jumping out of the car, and then Stiles’ heartbeat became audible, slightly elevated but not at all hidden beneath the sound of the car or the rustling of thin plastic. That made it extremely peculiar.

Two minutes later, Stiles came in through the door of the motel room, a Walgreens bag clutched in his hand. “Okay.”

Scott gave up on his book. Instead, he sat up straighter on the bed, and squinted at Stiles like he might explode if Scott said too much or made any hasty moves. “Okay? What’s _okay_?”

Stiles lifted the bag and shook it, filling the air with the sound of thin plastic rasping against itself. He took the steps between the door and the bed slowly, with more deliberation than Stiles usually moved with. “Like I said. You’ve been acting weird since we got stuck here. And I’ve been all over the place thinking about what it could be. Every time I thought I had it something changed. And then there was you _kissing_ my _neck_ , and--”

“Stiles, I can explain--” Scott started, only to be interrupted by Stiles lifting a hand.

“No, I think I figured it out. If I’m wrong, you can tell me later, and, I dunno, we can pretend we never had this conversation, ever. But I think I figured it out.” Stiles moved, then, to upend his bag onto the bed. A generously-sized bottle of lube and a box of condoms spilled out. “I think you’re into me.”

Everything seemed to slam into Scott all at once. The understanding that Stiles had figured him out, no matter how secretive he thought he had been. The fact that Stiles had taken that understanding and gone-- _somewhere_ \--to get _condoms and lube_.

That was where the gears of Scott’s mind really locked up and started to strip. He reached out, tentatively, to pick up the box of condoms and examine them.  They looked like they would fit, which Scott didn’t know if he felt was some kind of immense coincidence or some equally immense kind of invasive observation on Stiles’ part. “I...the first thing you thought was that you should ditch me on the side of the road and go to get _condoms and lube_? You didn’t think maybe we should talk about any of this? Like maybe the part where it matters whether _you’re_ into _me_?”

All of Stiles’ nervous energy seemed to focus down and concentrate on this one moment. He looked up at Scott, his face blank, an expression of mild and confused shock. “What? Scott, I’ve basically been in love with you since sophomore _year_.”

If the appearance of the condoms and lube hadn’t caused Scott’s mind to seize up, that statement would have. He stared blankly at Stiles, his mouth dropped open to let out all the questions or protests that he just couldn’t form. The whole world seemed to have come to a standstill.

Stiles watched Scott’s face for several long heartbeats, before something soft came over his face, like compassion. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth, but the smile he gave was more self-deprecation than it was an invitation. “You’re gonna tell me that you had no idea. I know. That was the whole point. You weren’t supposed to have any idea.”

“What about Lydia?” Scott found himself objecting, as if this was something _to_ object to. As if it wasn’t, really, exactly what he wanted. “What about _Malia_?”

Stiles’ chuckle was just as self-deprecating as his smile. “Scotty. You can be in love with more than one person at the same time.”

The statement made Scott’s eyebrows furrow, although he knew it to be true. It sounded like more of a set-up than it actually was. He _knew_ Stiles, thoroughly. Stiles’ loyalty had never been in question, not once. It never would be, even if their relationship evolved into something new. “So, _my_ excuse is that I only just figured this out like yesterday, at the earliest. You’ve known for years. What’s your excuse? Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“This is the first time it’s seemed like it might be an actual possibility.”

They both sat in silence for maybe longer than was entirely due. There was a new quality to the air, something sharp and electric, like the way things got before a thunderstorm rolled through. Scott didn’t know what to do with it, but it was making the hairs on the back of his head stand up.

Eventually, Stiles hazarded, “I mean, I guess I could be wrong. Did you...do you not want to do this? ‘Cause I just figured, we basically already live inside of each other, it isn’t like this is exactly new to either of us and maybe we could...just…”

The further into the sentence he got, the more Stiles seemed like he was drowning just trying to get through it. He looked up at Scott, his whole face a plea for help, and in that moment Scott really _looked_ at Stiles in return.

He was beautiful, Scott decided; it was an idea he’d been circling nervously for the past twenty-four to forty-eight hours, but now it was undeniable. The light from the window brightened the color of Stiles’ eyes until they seemed to be molten. It pinpointed the smattering of moles that dusted Stiles’ cheeks, it highlighted the sweep of Stiles’ neck until all Scott could think of was what it would feel like to put his mouth there, to mark up the pale skin with the evidence of his passing. The act of wanting Stiles wasn’t as new as it seemed, but the intensity of it, rolling over him in a wave, was.

He definitely needed to do something about that.

Making a soft noise in the back of his throat, Scott stood up to close the space between Stiles and himself. He let himself act on his daring, and lifted a hand to cup it along the line of Stiles’ jaw. “Stiles. Stiles. Shhh. I _told_ you. _Anything_. I...I want to. I _really_ want to.”

He tugged on Stiles’ face and Stiles gave so easily, leaning in as Scott directed him to. There was no time to worry about where they were going or what might happen when they got there. There was just this kiss that was happening, suddenly, between them.

To be perfectly honest, Scott had always thought that watching Stiles and Malia kiss was like watching a car wreck in progress, and he’d always kind of blamed that on Stiles. It seemed like such a messy, uncoordinated affair, clumsy and aggressive. As it turned out, no matter what it looked like on the outside, being in the middle of all of that chaos was another thing entirely. Stiles’ plush mouth proved so talented, his tongue sliding into Scott’s mouth like it had always belonged there, just to help Stiles Scott’s top lip into his own. He pressed against Scott with the whole line of his body, eager and responsive, nipping gently against Scott’s bottom lip any time Scott pulled the scantest amount away to catch a breath.

They were both flushed by the time they actually pulled apart. Scott wanted to be looking up at Stiles’ whole expression with awe, but all he could really look at was Stiles’ spit-shiny mouth, the way it had somehow gone redder and more plump. It looked ripe, like the skin of a red plum, ready to be ravaged. He wanted to see it slicked up and stretched around him.

Scott breathed his words out around a sigh, fingers tightening faintly against Stiles’ skin, “Yeah, okay, probably a good thing you went and got that stuff.”

Stiles’ answering smile was downright wicked.

He reached up and planted one hand against Scott’s shoulder, pushing hard. Scott stumbled a surprised step backwards, the backs of his legs bumping up against the edge of the bed. He caught on a second later and sat, only to be treated with a lap full of Stiles Stilinski, carefully arranged with one leg on each side of Scott’s own legs. “Yeah. I think you’re gonna think this is an incredible thing, Scotty, ‘cause I am gonna ride you off into the desert and become a cowboy.”

Scott couldn’t help the smile that stretched his face. “That was a terrible metaphor. Actually, I think it was a terrible and kind of insulting metaphor.”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me again, _God_.”

So he did. Scott pulled Stiles in with both hands, this time into another breathless, desperate kiss. He let his body tip backwards, dragging Stiles along with him. It was such a short distance until his back hit the mattress, but it felt enormous, like the simple act of acknowledging his feelings for Stiles had started an avalanche of them that he couldn’t stop. For once, Scott was happy to be swept away, because the fall ended with Stiles’ warm body half-stretched against his own, knees gripping at Scott’s hips for balance.

That made it easy for Scott to swivel them and take Stiles along with him, using the advantage of his alpha strength to pivot them until his legs were properly on the bed.

Stiles clung along for the ride, refusing to be budged from this place he’d claimed against Scott’s mouth the entire time they were moving. He kissed like the thought he wouldn’t get the opportunity to do it again, desperate and overwhelming.

Scott slipped one hand up against the hem of Stiles’ shirt, pressing it against the hot skin of Stiles’ side, and tried to make a quiet, soothing sound. “Stiles--Stiles. Calm down, we’ve got time. We don’t have to rush. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I have to be sure.” Stiles gasped. He squirmed, pressing his body against Scott’s in enough places that it was difficult to keep moving his hand under the shirt. “I have to be. I spent long enough--”

“Shhh,” Scott asserted, more firmly this time. He moved the hand not under Stiles’ shirt to smooth it along his leg, then up the side of his body towards his hair. “We _have time_ , okay? And honestly you’re making it really hard for either of us to get naked. I don’t know how you’re used to doing it but I’m used to everybody being naked.”

With a sound and an expression that was more like annoyance than the desperation, Stiles rocked his weight back to sit up. This gave Scott an excellent opportunity that he was not about to miss. Before Stiles could scold him or launch into whatever justification he was inevitably gearing up to give, Scott balled his fingers up into the fabric of Stiles’ shirt and dragged it up until he could force it over Stiles’ head. Surprise flashed through Stiles’ features, but he retaliated in kind, slightly clumsy about how he struggled to pull Scott free of his shirt.

It wasn’t like it was the first time they’d seen each other shirtless. It wasn’t even like it was the hundredth time. The change in intention made all the difference. It put something like awe in Stiles’ expression when he reached down with one hand and started to trace his fingertips over the lines of Scott’s chest and torso. “You’re just--really beautiful, you know that?”

“What?” Scott laughed up at Stiles, his gaze jolting from following the path of Stiles’ collarbones up to his eyes again. “Stiles--dude. Don’t tease me.”

Stiles squinted, meeting Scott’s gaze briefly. ”Dude. I’m not teasing, you _are_ beautiful. You’re - you’re like a warm forest in the sunshine kind of beautiful. Like the kind of beautiful you want to build a little wood cabin in and grow flowers and end up surrounded with little fluffy forest creatures and stuff.”

The sad thing was, Scott wasn’t sure if that made no sense or too much sense. It didn’t matter, because he didn’t have time to think about it. Stiles was reaching down, brushing his fingertips over one of Scott’s nipples. Sensation arced through his chest like electricity, starting on one side just to leap to the other, and then ground out somewhere lower, between his legs. Scott groaned, letting the sound resonate in the same chest that was so electrified, and Stiles answered with a low laugh full of promise.

Scott wanted that promise, and all the other promises that Stiles could offer him. He could feel his body gearing up, his own patience shredding as if he’d taken his claws to it. He undid the fastening of Stiles’ shorts so quickly that he thought he might have popped the button off. Every centimeter of progress he made on pulling the fly down freed more of Stiles from his pants, the scent of him starting to roll out into the room to fill in all the empty space.

It didn’t take much time after that for them to end up naked.

If Scott had thought Stiles was beautiful before, it still had not prepared him for how utterly gorgeous Stiles was in his full glory. In the liquid-thick light of the sunset, Stiles almost glowed golden. His skin looked like the promised land of milk and honey, and Scott desperately wanted to roll him over and test every inch for flavor.

Stiles’ erection was already wet at the tip and drooling when it dragged against Scott’s. The feeling of the skin skidding together jolted through him, too-fleeting. He tried to chase it with subtle motions of his hips, but when that wasn’t nearly fast enough, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Literally, in this case, by wrapping his palm around them both and giving a long, slow stroke.

The sound Stiles made in response was the best thing Scott had ever heard.

Every time he pulled on them, Stiles made that noise again, rocking against Scott in slow, unsubtle motions. Scott thought they might just go like this, sweet and unhurried, with his fingers growing steadily more slick. They might have, except that Stiles somehow managed to find enough focus to speak, voice rough around the edges. “Scotty. Scotty. Y’gotta...y’gotta open me up.”

Scott’s heart flipped over in his chest. He stilled the motion of his hand just to look up at Stiles’ face and the half-hooded way he held his eyes open. “You sure?”

“Are you kidding me?” Stiles breathed out, face flush. The red was starting to creep down his throat, which mostly made Scott want to bite at it. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m so... _so_ sure. I’m sure I wanna do this, I’m sure I’m gonna need some prep, I’m **sure**. C’mon.”

He punctuated the end of the statement by leaning to the side just to retrieve the lube, pressing it into Scott’s palm. Once he’d passed it off, Stiles turned his attention to trying to replace Scott’s hand on their dicks with his own. He rocked up onto his knees, lowering his face until it was just inches from Scott’s, mouth quirked up in an open, smug smile. “I got this part. You just--you just...get me ready.”

Scott’s fingers were already slick from the sheer amount of pre that Stiles had already leaked, but he still poured what felt like an overly generous amount of lube on them before he reached down between their bodies. He tucked his hand beneath Stiles’ leg and was rewarded with a messy kiss when he started to circle his fingertips around Stiles’ hole.

It was easier than Scott had thought it would be, to ease one finger into the clutching heat of Stiles’ body. Every time he did, he was rewarded, either with a whimpering sigh in the midst of their kiss or a tightening in the grip of Stiles’ hand. Stiles was so responsive, unshy about using his voice, making it easy for Scott to figure out exactly how far and how fast he could take the stretch. He got lost in it, the feeling of Stiles’ body slowly giving way for him, the breathy grunts and sighs that Stiles offered up every time Scott’s fingers found a good spot. He was transfixed by shine in Stiles’ eyes, the scent of him thick in the air, the wet sound of him coming back down on Scott’s hand to jolt against his knuckles, even two or three fingers into it. It stretched out like eternity, and also felt like no time at all, when Stiles was suddenly pressing a condom into Scott’s chest, rasping a single needy word:

“Okay.”

Scott slid his hand free without hesitation. He was done with the doubt, the uncertainty. Instead, he brought the condom up to his mouth with his dry hand, using his teeth to tear the packet open in a gesture he hoped looked confident. It worked well enough, because Stiles shuddered, long fingers stealing the unwrapped condom from Scott’s hands.  He was gentle as he smoothed it down along Scott’s aching cock, far more gentle than Scott wanted him to be. He was gentle when he poured out more lube and smeared it down along the outside of the condom.

He was not quite as gentle when he lifted up to line Scott up and then just _dropped_ his weight straight down.

For a few seconds, the world was nothing but gold-white light, the sound of Stiles’ cry as he settled into Scott’s lap. Then Stiles planted both hands on Scott’s shoulders and rolled his spine, somehow translating the whole motion into a snap of his hips, and the whole world was nothing but _that feeling_ , the heat and drag of Stiles around him. Scott responded to the spine-roll with a slow, deep thrust, and Stiles cursed above him, fingers tightening against the line of Scott’s collarbone.

They fell into the pattern easily, as they had all of their lives. It was so familiar, so _right_ to be moving like this with Stiles, fitted together like they’d been made to interlock. They didn’t need words to know how to move, how to change their angle until every time they came crashing together dragged a bright, desperate cry out of Stiles. The sounds built until they bounced around the room, ricocheting off of the walls and tangling with the scent that was so thick Scott could taste it, until every one of Scott’s sense was surrounded by something that could be no further or better described than _Stiles_.

It all built and built and _built_ , like a star in his belly. Scott could feel it stretching out in every part of his body, fire along his veins and under his skin. He kept moving his hands over Stiles’ thighs and hips as they moved together, until it occurred to him to curl the fingers of one of them around Stiles’ cock. The second his skin made contact, Stiles gasped throatily, eyes scrunching shut. Every part of Stiles seemed to clench; his knees against Scott’s sides, his fingers over Scott’s chest, his body around Scott’s arousal. Stiles keened, and then arced high, splashing his climax along Scott’s stomach.

There was no way Scott could hold out against all of that. Using his free hand to tug Stiles’ hip down against him, like they could get any closer together, he let himself fall over the edge. Stiles rocked him through it, giving a low, pleased groan with each fresh pulse that Scott poured into him.

When it was all over and they had both shuddered their way through the aftershocks, Stiles ended up laid out against Scott’s body, his face tucked against the curve of Scott’s neck. He kept leaving wet, lazy kisses there, like he couldn’t dredge up any more energy for anything more. That was fine with Scott. He was so content here, in the dying light, his body ticking down like a cooling engine and Stiles pressed so close against him. They’d have to trade time in the bathroom to clean up later, but for now, this was perfect, reveling in each other and what they’d made between them.

“Hey, Stiles.” Scott rumbled eventually, after Stiles’ kisses had slowed.

“Yeah?”

Scott traced his fingertips up the line of Stiles’ spine, touching just for the sake of the feeling of it, and hoped his smile showed in his voice when he spoke. “I think I could be like this with you, do this with you, for basically forever. You know?”

In the quiet of the room, it was easy to hear the beautiful way Stiles’ heart hiccuped before he squirmed closer. “...yeah. Ditto, Scotty. Ditto.”

 

 

 

Later, after the sun had finished crawling beneath the horizon, stickiness and hunger drove them both out of the bed. Neither of them wanted to bother with clothing, so Scott carefully dragged the comforter off of the bed and wrapped it around their shoulders while Stiles heated the leftovers from lunch up on the camp stove.

It was cozy, sharing their body heat beneath the blanket, breaking down taquitos into gooey bite-sized chunks that they passed between them without words. It felt familiar and almost more intimate than anything that they had done earlier, like they were the only people left on the planet. Scott was okay with that feeling, the notion that there could exist nothing but them two, huddled together with their bare legs touching. He smoothed one of his palms across Stiles’ knee as a reminder of affection.

It bobbed up into his touch, and then Stiles looked Scott in the face, studying his expression carefully. “You know I'm gonna want to do this when we get home, too, right?”

Scott laughed. He couldn't help himself. “What, sit naked together under a blanket eating food off of a camp stove?”

“ _Maybe._ ” Stiles said, defensively. He frowned faintly as he turned his eyes towards the stove. “But I meant...you know. This. Us. Or at least, this new version of us.”

“You mean, you want to continue having sex when we're back in Beacon Hills?” Scott struggled to keep his voice even, afraid he might have somehow misinterpreted what Stiles was trying to say.

Stiles’ frown intensified. “It’s more than just the sex. If I was just looking for sex I could have gone anywhere to get that and I wouldn't have had to potentially endanger my relationship with my best friend. I mean, _yes,_ I would like to continue having sex, lots and lots of sex, but I also kind of want all of the other ridiculous stuff, too. Malia wasn't too into...romantic gestures. She didn't really understand them. And then maybe everything just happened, and kept happening, and then there wasn’t time. Or...space. For any of it. So I gave up. But I always wanted to do them, to make them. You know?”

Scott smoothed his hand in a slow circle over Stiles’ leg. “Dude, sometimes you are the absolute worst at listening. I told you right after we finished that I want to keep doing this. I'm pretty sure I used the word ‘forever'. I know you heard me because you said ‘ditto'.”

“I thought you meant just the sloppy boning part.”

Again Scott laughed because he couldn't quite help himself, trying to squeeze his fondness into Stiles’ thigh with his fingertips. “I don't think I could do friends with benefits even if I wanted to try. All those romantic gestures that you couldn’t manage before? I want them. I am fully committed to this, dude. Heart and all.”

Stiles’ eyes shone wetly as he looked back up at Scott. He stripped himself of all artifice like he was taking off a suit of armor, and instead lay his most honest truth at Scott’s feet like he’d forgotten he’d already offered it. “I love you.”

“Yeah,” Scott answered, looking Stiles right in those wet eyes and nodding. “That’s exactly my point. I love you too.”

In response, Stiles’ face flushed. He caught his lip in his teeth and turned to look away, his scent too bashful and pleased to allow Scott to mistake Stiles’ expression with shame. “So you’re okay with us being a super obvious and obnoxious couple?”

“Stiles, we are gonna be the _obviousest._ The _obnoxiousest._ ”

“I'm pretty sure neither of those are words.”

Scott beamed at Stiles in answer, hand still on his knee. “Uh-huh. _That’s_ how obnoxious we’re gonna be.”

Chuckling quietly, Stiles let himself tip to the side until his head was propped up against Scott’s shoulder. They remained that way for a while, allowing the fire from the camp stove to die down, before Stiles spoke, “Okay, not to sound ungrateful, but I am super gross and crusty from my second rib down and it would be so, so awesome if I could wash that off.”

Scott echoed Stiles’ chuckle, turning to help him to his feet. He wasn't careful about where he put his hands and Stiles did not object, no matter what part of his bare skin Scott touched. It was a good dynamic to have already fallen into, the idea that what they had evolved into was already so casual and comforting. It made Scott’s chest feel broad and full.

What was less broad was the bathtub. It was frankly tiny, an uncomfortable soak for either of them alone. That wasn’t going to stop Stiles, who stood ridiculously in the bathroom fully naked with his hands on his hips, considering the space they had available to them. He had all the serious industriousness of a city architect, finally determining that they could sit sideways, facing each other, with their knees hooked over the sides of the tub. It wasn’t going to get anyone’s hair washed, but it did allow them to clean the places that Stiles had previously complained about being _super gross and crusty_.

It gave Scott an excellent view of Stiles’ body in repose, the lazy way he ran the washcloth over his skin. He found it distracting, hypnotizing in the way he’d found the motion of Stiles’ fingers all weekend. He was drawn in, and almost before he realized he was doing it, Scott was leaning forward, taking over the task of cleaning. It was an excuse to learn the lines of Stiles’ stomach, an excuse to watch what specific touches turned his scent from lackadaisical contentment to a warm, heady arousal. It seemed even closer in the closed space of the bathroom than it had on the bed, crowding in against Scott until every breath in had the flavor of Stiles pouring down his throat. The angles were all wrong for it, but Scott couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if he could fold himself enough in half to put his mouth on it and have Stiles pouring down his throat for real.

Stiles’ voice rumbled low in the room, and he reached out to mirror Scott’s gesture, so that they were just sitting awkwardly in a small bathtub, hands softly stroking each other’s dicks. It was so unhurried, tender rather than the rough passion they’d shared earlier. It was almost conversational, except for the needy burr in Stiles’ voice, when he noted, “Your eyes are red.”

Idly, Scott used his thumb to smear Stiles’ wetness down along his shaft. He liked the way it made Stiles’ breath skip. “Yeah? Is that a problem?”

“No,” Stiles admitted, letting his head tip back and lengthen his neck into too many inches of temptation. “It’s pretty hot. You can leave them….leave them like that. If you want. I like knowing that part of you is...is so into this, too.”

“All parts of me are into this, Stiles.” Scott punctuated the words with a lazy roll of his hips up into Stiles’ grip. The water sloshed around them, lapping at skin and the edges of the tub. It felt like a reminder of how intertwined their lives had always been, each of them unable to even move without the ripples impacting the other.

Stiles’ grip tightened deliciously in response. “I can tell, Scotty. I can tell.”

This time their mutual climax was not rushed. They took their time, working in tandem, until they both were fully sated and back to where they started in terms of mess.  The second pass they made with the washcloth was almost entirely utilitarian.

They stayed in the tub until the water was uncomfortably cold. When they finally climbed out of it, Scott made a theatrical show out of wrapping Stiles up in one of the worn, warm towels that Rosa had left for them. Stiles grumbled, loudly, but it was all for show, like he thought Scott would expect him to really fight the tenderness.

Scott guided them back into the main room and back onto the bed, using the towel to tastefully cover over any spots that may have still been damp from earlier. The sound that Stiles made as he settled in against the mattress was soft and content, stirring Scott’s heart until he could feel it flushing in his cheeks. He thought he would end up the big spoon again, having noticed Stiles’ inclination towards being the smaller one already, but what he _got_ was his best friend curled up into a warm ball against him, face buried in Scott’s chest and fingers clutching at his sides.

It felt good. It felt _right_. Scott draped one arm over Stiles’ body and held him close, feeling their breathing sync as he drifted into sleep comfortably anchored by Stiles’ long limbs.

 

 

The morning was split open by the harsh braying of Stiles’ ringtone, dragging Scott out of sleep. This time he was spared the ignominy of Stiles’ armpit in his face, but that was completely and rapidly off-set by the fact that Stiles startled awake like a nervous animal and immediately started putting his hands clumsily on every part of Scott’s body in an effort to push himself up from the mattress. It took way, _way_ too long for Stiles to get himself together enough to answer his phone. Scott was sure he could still hear the brass instruments rattling against the insides of his skull by the time Stiles hung up. He wondered if he could somehow still block them out with a pillow if he squashed it hard enough against his head.

It turned out not to be necessary. Stiles rolled back over once he put his phone back onto the end table, his whole demeanor softer and more easy than Scott had seen him in months, maybe years. He hooded his eyes just a little bit, looking at Scott through his lashes as he spoke. His tone was quiet, like Stiles also understood the sanctity of the morning, and didn’t want to disturb it more than his phone already had. “That was Rick. He says Roscoe’s ready. He’s going to drive him up here and park him, and we can go any time after that.”

It was good news, it really was. It still made Scott’s heart drop just a little bit, the knowledge that soon, they would have to leave Yermo and its strange sense of dusty peace. He knew they couldn’t stay here forever, that Beacon Hills needed them back someday. It was just a shame that someday had already come.

“I still feel bad that we didn’t pay him for any of this.” Scott murmured, glancing up at Stiles’ face. He wanted to take in all the details as Stiles woke up, only to find to his dismay that Stiles was already more or less _awake_. “I feel like we should write him a check or something. You know? Fixing your Jeep couldn’t have been _cheap_.”

Stiles’ dreamy expression changed tragically into one that was more suspicious, his eyes starting to squint. “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Scott lifted the shoulder that wasn’t pressed into the mattress in a shrug. “Just that there was a lot of things wrong with it. I mean--I love your Jeep, I totally do, but it _broke down_ on us. It needed help. A _lot_ of help.”

That suspicious, unimpressed expression didn’t budge from Stiles’ face for what felt like way too long. It eventually softened, and Stiles rolled a little to lay on his belly, nudging at Scott with his near elbow. “Don’t worry about it. He volunteered to help for free, it isn’t like you demanded it. Besides which, now you’ve made a pack alliance like you’d hoped you’d get from the summit, without all of the wolfy paparazzi around, and you owe Rick and his people a huge favor, which he can keep in his pocket in case something goes down. Seems like a pretty equivalent exchange to me.”

It was a little disheartening to think that maybe Rick had done all of this--fixed the Jeep, put Stiles and Scott up in his family’s motel for three nights, even nudged Scott and Stiles into cementing what was otherwise trying to turn into quicksand between them--just to get something out of Scott. He decided not to look at it that way, determined that the favor he now owed the Yermo pack was nothing more than unintended collateral from Rick’s efforts to be a genuinely good person. It made Scott a lot more comfortable with it all.

“Come on,” Scott nudged Stiles back, less with his elbow and more with the palm of his hand. “Let’s get up. The sooner we get dressed, the sooner you get to see Roscoe now that he’s out of the hospital.”

Stiles didn’t seem to need much extra coaxing. He rolled in closer just to touch what might have been a kiss, _maybe_ , to one of Scott’s forearms, and then he was rolling away, stumbling up onto his feet in a perfect opposite to the way he tended to tumble out of the Jeep. Once he had caught his balance, he seemed determined to risk losing it again by stretching up onto his toes, arms over his head. Scott stared for a long time, at _least_ as long as Stiles took to work the kinks out of his spine.

By the time Scott heard Rick pull up with the Jeep, they were already dressed and packed up. The motel room almost seemed bigger, somehow, with their things gathered back up. It was a far cry from how tiny and inhospitable it had seemed when they arrived.

Stiles, too, seemed different than he had when they’d arrived. He wasn't wearing the shirt that Scott had torn into a tank for him, but he was still in those makeshift jeans, still in the backwards-turned snapback that swallowed his hair and made his face seem younger and rounder than it was. Scott started to wonder if he was going to be the only thing leaving Yermo unchanged, but as he let his eyes trail down the length of Stiles’ arm to those hypnotic fingers, he realized even that wasn't true.

The Jeep that was waiting for them as they exited the motel room into the bright sunlight was cleaner and more vividly blue than Scott could ever remember having seen it. Rick was standing next to the open driver’s side door, but he might as well have been transparent for all that Stiles noticed him. No, Stiles was too busy dropping his luggage into the dust and circling his car with both hands held off of his body, alternating between expressing shock and wordlessly begging Scott to look at what Scott was already gaping at.

Rick had refitted the entire roof of the car, realigned the doors until they fit snugly and closed properly. Every inch of it shone, the spots of rust removed, its tires brand new and its glass sparkle-clean. When Stiles climbed inside and turned the engine over, it made a sound Scott had _definitely_ never heard from that dilapidated old thing. It _purred_.

Stiles looked up through the windshield to gaze at Scott in sheer open-mouthed wonder.

He shut Roscoe off and scrambled out of his seat to just about fall all over Rick, _literally_ , pushing the line of obsequious with his gratitude. Scott was fairly sure that Stiles was close to tears, but his scent just kept radiating a sort of giddy, gleeful joy that Scott was _also_ fairly sure he could get drunk on given enough time.

He let Stiles have a few minutes to make his thankfulness obvious before stepping in, the key to the motel room extended in one hand. “Thank you. For _everything_. I don’t know how to pay you back for this, _honestly_ , I feel like you went well beyond hospitality.”

Rick’s smile seemed genuine as he accepted the key and then turned the gesture into a firm handshake. “I’m hoping it’ll never come to you paying us back, Scott. I remember how hard it is to find your place in a world like this. It can’t be any easier, being a True Alpha so young. Just consider this a reminder that not everything in this world has got to take something from you.”

He rocked a step backwards, then, still smiling, and freed his hand from the handshake just to reach up and pat it amicably on the side of Scott’s arm. “Now, if you boys don’t get on out of here, the next thing you know you’re gonna be putting down roots, and honestly, this town’s supporting enough of those as it can. Go back home. Try to do better than survive, but at _least_ do that.”

Scott didn’t know what to say to that. The tears burned at the backs of his eyes, an overwhelming amount of relief and gratitude, so he just nodded, trying to swallow down the lump in his throat. He watched for too long as Rick turned, calling a goodbye to Stiles, and made his way into the main office of the motel.

A few moments stretched out while the only real sounds were the hush of traffic on the highway far behind them and the sound of Scott’s own pulse in his ears.

Eventually, he shook himself out of his reverie and turned to help Stiles pile their bags into the back of the Jeep. Even the hatch opened without a squeal of protesting metal. Stiles supplemented his own delighted squeal instead, which made Scott roll his eyes fondly as he salvaged a pair of warm water bottles for the start of a very long drive.

For as familiar as Yermo had started to get, there was something far more familiar about settling back into the passenger’s seat of the old Jeep. Rick had fixed a lot about Roscoe, but some things would never change, like the worn groove in the upholstery that Scott suspected was the exact size and shape of his own butt, or the smell of _him_ and _Stiles_ that permeated the whole thing, under the scents of oil or desert or old take-out food. Scott gave a contented little sound as he settled in against the partially rolled-down window, letting the breeze ruffle the top of his hair as they got on the road. He supposed he was ready to go home after all.

Which was why it was a little bit of a surprise when Stiles took the turn not to get back onto the Highway, but to go deeper into the desert. Scott frowned, straightening so that he could peer at the side of Stiles’ face.

Stiles shrugged with one shoulder. “Hey. You said you wanted to go to Calico Ghost Town. All I said was I wouldn’t _walk_. I’m not walking now, am I?”

Scott’s grin felt like it could have split his whole face in half as he turned it back to the window.

As it turned out, ‘Ghost Town’ was a bit of a misnomer for Calico. Scott had expected it to be completely empty, devoid of human habitation and free for him and Stiles to climb all over and explore in solitude. What they found was closer to an actual theme park, complete with an entrance fee. There were absolutely buildings that had been enduring the desert heat since the 1880s, but there were more buildings that were more modern, with workers in period garb running shops that sold old-timey kitsch and hand-made goods. There were almost more people in Calico than Scott had seen accounted for in Yermo.

They visited anyway. They trolled through the candle shop and found a nice, hand-carved pillar candle for his mother. He bought a wooden sign that read ‘The Sheriff’--also hand-carved--for Stiles’ father, all the while listening with fondness to Stiles’ constant criticism of the grammar of the other signs for sale. Scott bought Stiles a couple of minutes of gold-panning time in the desiccated little stream that ran through the town. Stiles found nothing more than a bottle cap with a bright star painted on the top, but he seemed to think it was a treasure of great value and giddily stuffed it into his pocket.

They bought way too much penny candy, none of which actually cost as little as a penny, and circled back around to the Calico Restaurant, which Scott was pleased to discover had _enormous_ juicy burgers and generous enough fries portions to satisfy even Stiles’ discerning palette. They took their time and lingered, but not quite long enough for Scott to start thinking it was a good idea for him to let Stiles buy either the neon cowboy hat he tried to set on Scott’s head _or_ the creepy black glass skull with the emerald eyes.

Stiles at least agreed with him on the second one, deciding as they left the store that it was probably cursed anyway.

By the time they got back to Roscoe and started to pick their way back to the highway, it was almost noon. Scott was well aware that they wouldn’t get back to Beacon Hills until tomorrow at the earliest, even if they drove through the night. He didn’t really mind, for once feeling no pressure to rush back and shove himself between the entire town and any of the extremely common danger that came at it.

“I’m sorry, by the way.” Stiles’ voice seemed to come out of nowhere, even as close as the driver’s seat. Scott frowned himself away from the window to look at his friend in confusion. “About the summit, I mean. If I’m being _totally_ honest--I had my doubts. About Roscoe. I worried. But I just...I wanted to be the one to take you so bad. I wanted to be the one to go with you. And I felt like if you just bought air fare, you could take anyone and I’d miss my chance, but now instead _you_  missed your networking chance and it’s kinda my fault, so.”

Stiles nodded, like he had to reinforce the idea in his own mind, and then glanced so briefly to Scott. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t anger that swelled up in Scott’s chest. He didn’t feel annoyed or betrayed that Stiles had suspected this might happen, in part because he had honestly had the same thoughts. Instead, he just felt warmth, an almost incongruent pride that Stiles had chosen to be truthful with him. He felt content with what _had_ happened, and what he’d gotten out of it.

So he smiled, and lifted his left hand to dust his fingers over the knuckles of Stiles’ right, as it wrapped comfortably around the gear shift. “Don’t worry, man. Don’t worry about it at all. I got something out of this whole trip that the summit could have never given me anyway. Everything was completely worth it.”

The smile that Stiles answered with, pointed at the road but meant for Scott, would be one that Scott would keep safe and close in the scrapbook of his mind for many years to come.  



End file.
